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Copy 1 jiat Women Have Done 
With the Vote 

By 

JESSIE ACKERM ANN, F. R. S. G. S. 




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What Women Have Done 
With the Vote 



BY 

JESSIE ACKERMANN, F.R.S.G.S. 



WILLIAM B. FEAKINS 

PUBLISHER 
19 Wbst 44TH St., New York 






Copyright, 19 13, by 
JESSIE ACKERMANN 



7/- 

©aA3o'7079 



frtss of Ftrris 
PhilmeUlp 



DEDICATED 

TO 

ALL WOMEN IN ALL LANDS WHO ARE HELPING TO 

MAKE THE WORLD BETTER FOR MEN, 

WIDER FOR WOMEN, AND PURER FOR CHILDREN. 



Jessie Ackermann. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I How the Women of New Zealand got the 

Franchise 7 

Chapter II The Result of the Franchise in New 

Zealand 14 

Chapter III How the Women of Australia got the 

Franchise 21 

Chapter IV Women of Australia as Citizens .... 28 

Chapter V Some Laws Relating to Women and 

Children in Australia 40 

Chapter VI Suffrage as Related to the Birth-rate in 

Australia 48 

Chapter VII Aims of Australian Women Citizens . . 58 

Chapter VIII The Woman's Vote in Finland .... 63 

Chapter IX Women Citizens at Work in Norway . . 74 

Chapter X How the Women of China Became 

Citizens 78 



INTRODUCTION 




view of the woman question being a live 
issue, demanding settlement in practically 
every country of the world, I resolved to 
visit those lands where women are fully enfranchised, 
to study the results of this new factor in National life 
and learn if there had been a decline in the domestic 
interests and influence of woman in the home. 

In pursuit of these objects I spent twenty-two 
months in Australia and New Zealand studying the 
situation in these Southlands, while China, Finland 
and Scandinavia, in all of which places women enjoy 
citizenship, afforded daily illustrations of the practical 
operation of women as citizens. 

The following pages form a short record of my 
observations while living, as I usually did, in the 
homes of the people of varied stations of life. 

I have tried to take an impartial view of the in- 
teresting situation and briefly set forth my conclusions 
for the benefit of any who may wish to become familiar 
with facts, gathered first-hand at short range. 

Having been in close touch with every phase of 
the franchise movement, both as to the efforts in se- 
curing citizenship and also the results of the practical 
operation of women in politics, I may claim to be in a 
position to set forth the true situation as it obtains 
in these lands. 

JESSIE ACKERMANN. 
Jul7, 1913. 



How Women of New Zealand Got the Franchise. 7 



CHAPTER I. 

How THE Women of New Zealand 
Got the Franchise. 

TT is not my purpose to enter upon a discussion of 
the justice of extending citizenship to women. 
This is now accepted by leaders of thought among 
both men and women. 

I shall confine what I have to say to observations 
and research made during residence of shorter or 
longer periods in those lands where women now enjoy 
the rights of citizenship, beginning with New Zealand. 

Upon my first visit to New Zealand, now somewhat 
over twenty years ago, the women were beginning, 
only beginning, to feel what enfranchisement would 
mean in the building of a new country. It must first 
be observed that conditions were more favorable to 
innovations in this new and democratic land than in 
the old world from which the early settlers came. The 
vastness of possibility was conducive to experimental 
legislation. The very setting demanded a new social 
order and a departure from beaten lines. In New Zea- 
land the struggle for woman suffrage did not involve 
the overcoming of obstacles that similar movements in 
the old world would mean. The younger generation, 
as well as a following of the older school, discerned in 
their new setting a fitting opportunity for proposed 
changes. Truly the spirit of prophecy must have set- 
tled upon them! 



8 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

BEGINNINGS. 

The suffrage movement was introduced into New 
Zealand by an English lady whose conservative hus- 
band was bitterly and fiercely opposed to the principle. 
To avoid an open clash in the home and carry out a 
mission which was born into her very soul as one of 
righteousness, it became necessary for this good 
woman to carry on the work of agitation and propa- 
ganda unknown to her husband, who held a very high 
position in both city and district affairs. This dates 
back to 1850. 

So new was the mere suggestion of women having 
the vote that leading men listened to Mrs. Muller's 
arguments with barely courteous apathy, while others 
quoted Scripture, dug up St. Paul, and were truly 
shocked at " so scandalous a suggestion." This was 
no idle pose on the part of the men. They were quite 
sincere in their views concerning the impropriety of 
women " careering around in the political arena " and 
entering the realm of extended thought. The situation 
is so familiar, I need not dwell at length upon the 
objections raised. These were from the conservative 
element who really felt that the highest interests of the 
home were at stake as well as the ideal standard of 
womanhood. 

There was also the opposition born of a downright 
fear of the influence of women in this new center of 
action, while others could foresee the doom of evil- 
doers, who depended upon the sanction of the law to 
carry out their oppression or greed for gain. In short, 
the advent of women into national life would mean 
clean politics, an unthinkable factor on the part of men 
with selfish aims to accomplish. 



How Women of New Zealand Got the Franchise. 9 

In the early stages of the agitation, legislators re- 
garded the movement as quite harmless, and it was 
unnecessary to take a party stand on the matter. Mrs. 
Muller was aided in her anonymous propaganda by 
the editor of a leading newspaper, who not only lent 
his columns freely to set forth arguments in favor 
of woman suffrage, but arranged for the publication 
of her articles in remote parts of the Colony, and 
brought out her pamphlet, entitled " An Appeal to the 
Men of New Zealand," for free circulation. 

Twenty-seven years later an advocate of the cause 
introduced a resolution into the New Zealand Parlia- 
ment to the effect that " electoral disabilities of women 
should be removed in the name of the rights of the 
whole of the people and of unborn millions." 

Then followed the usual parliamentary tactics for 
which wise and learned men are noted. Year after 
year " women, lunatics, and convicts " remained 
beyond the pale of the Constitution. These classes 
alike were wholly dependent upon male relatives to 
secure for them legal redress from wrong or oppres- 
sion. But all thinking women know what that means. 
In my mother's day the women of some of the States 
did not own their own clothes — that is, after they were 
married. A woman took a man's name, and he 
took her clothes and all other possessions. 

PROGRESS. 

The progress of the cause between the years 1850 
and 1885 was slow, but still advancement was made. 
In the latter year the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union was organized in several towns and cities of 
New Zealand, and the following year a convention of 



10 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

delegates from these local societies was held in Wel- 
lington, when a Central Union was formed which 
should cover the whole colony — New Zealand was then 
a colony. 

Among the departments for which a general super- 
intendent for the entire colony was appointed was one 
known as the Department of Franchise. A most 
happy selection was made in the appointment of Mrs. 
Shepherd as head of that department for all New Zea- 
land. To her splendid ability and unceasing efforts a 
large measure of success was due. Through abuse, 
often personal, and good cheer, through defeat and 
discouragements thick and dark enough to exterminate 
the fires of enthusiasm, the flames of zeal ever burst 
anew, and effort was never allowed to flag. The first 
petition met the usual fate of the prayer of the dis- 
franchised. Another effort was made. Petitions were 
again circulated. This became one of the regular 
methods of agitation, and a fine one it was for creating 
public sentiment and extending general education upon 
the subject. With the return of each petition year by 
year the signatures were increased nearly one hundred 
per cent., which meant that enlightenment upon the 
subject was spreading and a keener interest was being 
awakened. 

About the time when greatest activity was necessary 
I reached New Zealand on my first trip around the 
world. Familiar as I was with the unsympathetic 
treatment of some of the pioneer women of America, I 
marvelled at the determination of a mere handful of 
women, and fewer men, to push the reform to a suc- 
cessful issue. They bombarded every citadel of con- 
servatism. With unhallowed feet they rushed into the 



How Women of New Zealand Got the Franchise. 11 

sacred precincts of synods, assemblies, and unions of 
various church bodies, some of which publicly pro- 
claimed the scandal of such proceedings. Conserva- 
tism upon the position of women was certainly very 
great. 

In the course of events, however, franchise societies 
were formed, the membership including men as well 
as women. Meantime the personnel of Parliament 
changed. Two most widely-known and highly- 
respected men, representing opposite political views, 
whose influence was probably greater than that of any 
other two men in the Colony, and who were ardent 
supporters of the cause, took their seats. This was 
fortunate, for it removed the issue from party politics. 
There were about as many members in favor of the 
issue upon one side of the House as on the other. 

VICTORY. 

The year of my visit chanced to be one of the great- 
est possible activity of the franchise department. The 
classification of women with " lunatics and convicts " 
was brought out in a most striking manner. The fact 
that a convict just out of .prison enjoyed the privileges 
of full citizenship the moment he was free, while the 
woman who had worked and supported his children 
during his sentence was a political outcast and must 
live under any kind of laws enacted by men who held 
their seats by the aid of criminal electors, was a power- 
ful argument. It made a great impression, and a 
sense of injustice took deep root. 

When the bill came up at last, with full hope of 
passing, the opposition speeches grew more and more 
violent and less and less logical. In desperation one 



12 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

of the members fell back upon the last refuge of an 
opponent at bay — the misinterpretation of Scripture. 
He rated every supporter of the bill as an enemy to 
the Almighty, trying to take women out of the place 
where God intended them to be. But public sentiment, 
with the force of an exploding bombshell, was against 
him. 

The Lower House, partly to save the face of the 
members and partly because it was worn out by the 
subject, agreed to pass the bill, depending — unavail- 
ingly — upon the Upper House to defeat it. Some fer- 
tile brain devised the idea of an amendment which was 
regarded as a certain means of defeat to the bill. This 
was to the effect that women were also to be eligible 
to seats in Parliament, biit it was lost. At the final 
reading in the Upper House, the measure was carried 
by the small majority of two votes — ^but it was carried. 

Seizing upon the last straw, the minority joined 
forces with the brewers, publicans, and other sinners 
in a petition to the Governor to withhold his signature 
from the bill. Following this the superintendent of the 
Franchise Department wrote to the Governor on be- 
half of one-third of the women in the Colony calling 
attention to the errors of statement — ^to put it mildly — 
contained in the minority petition. She also asked the 
country unions, as well as individual members, to tele- 
graph to the Governor. The result may be imagined 
— it is enough to record final victory. 

Mr, Seddon (the Premier), who blemished his 
otherwise brilliant career as a statesman by opposing 
the bill, sent the following telegram to Mrs. Shepherd : 
" The Electoral Bill assented to by his Excellency the 
Governor at a quarter to twelve this day." Thus, in 



How Women of N'ew Zealand Got the Franchise. IS 

September, 1893, sixteen years after the introduction 
of the first bill, the enfranchisement of every adult 
woman in New Zealand was achieved. 

It is not wide of the truth to say that to thousands 
of women of New Zealand citizenship came as the 
realization of the highest ideals of national life, and 
that it would leave an imprint upon every phase of 
human existence. Having created a demand for the 
power of the vote the sense of duty and obligations of 
citizenship followed. Women took to voting as 
naturally, calmly, and normally as they did to eating 
breakfast or washing dishes. They wanted the vote, 
and they used it. 

This is the secret of the success of the woman 
citizen in New Zealand. The vote was not thrust upon 
them by any party in order to make use of them to 
promote political and party measures. Ait earnest, 
wholesome desire to make the influence of women felt 
in national life prompted them to work, and work 
hard, to secure the privilege. 



14 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

CHAPTER II. 
The Result of the Franchise in New Zealand. 

TT is now twenty years since the women of New 
■*■ Zealand entered upon the duties of citizenship. 
All legislation in advance of public opinion car- 
ries neither duty nor conviction with it, and soon be- 
comes a dead letter. More properly speaking, it 
remains a dead letter, never having possessed the vital 
spark of demand. There can be no sense of individual 
responsibility or duty relating to any movement until 
a majority of the people are at least interested. 

In all places where women have truly desired citi- 
zenship, they have made wholesome use of it when 
granted. In other parts where unscrupulous men have 
made a political doormat of women, and walked over 
them to secure party measures, the vote in the hands 
of the women has not measured up to Party expecta- 
tion. I am convinced that the highway to success is 
only through a mighty battle on the part of women. 
It is true that brave women must spend and be spent; 
they must give out in the struggle after using pen, 
voice, and means to cut their way through prejudice 
and rock-bound usages which have surrounded woman 
from the dawn of Time to the present moment. Just 
in proportion to the force of the fight, will an educated 
public sentiment impress the individual with a sense of 
responsibility which leads to the discharge of duty. 

One of the impelling motives to claim citizenship for 
women in New Zealand was a firm belief that women 



The Result of the Franchise m New Zealand. 15 

would in some effective way deal with the liquor 
traffic. It is a well-known fact, which may be stated 
without one being accused of trying to preach a tem- 
perance sermon, that women and children are the 
greatest sufferers from the curse of strong drink. As 
almost every home is more or less touched by the 
baneful influences of the public-house, women were 
eager to use their political influence in some way to 
curtail or suppress the evil. 

What they have been able to do has been so grossly 
misrepresented by individuals, and representatives of 
the Press to whom the matter of suffrage does not 
appeal, that a few facts on the subject may throw a 
glimmer of light upon the disputed question of the 
value of woman's vote. 

It was stated in one paper that there is more liquor 
consumed in no-license electorates where local option 
prevails (a 3/5 vote closes a public house) than under 
the old system. This needs no argument, for it is 
utterly absurd upon the face of it. If such a state of 
affairs really existed every brewer would try to secure 
a Temperance Alliance lecturer instead of spending 
vast sums to fight the influence of that society. 

No one with any knowledge of the operation of the 
law prohibiting the sale of liquor in a given district 
would pretend to say that it is an absolute success. 
There are laws against murder and theft, but that 
does not prevent either of these crimes. What has 
most nearly suppressed these crimes has not been laws 
against them, but laws prohibiting the liquor traffic. 
So long as human nature is what it is: so long as 
greed for gain is the motive power of so much in 
human affairs, every law which attempts to regulate 



16 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

or curtail the actions of men will be broken, and the 
law which pertains to the liquor traffic will prove no 
exception. The facts are that in New Zealand as a 
whole, including prohibitive districts, £3 13s. ij^d. per 
capita is annually spent on liquor, while in the prohibi- 
tion electorates the amount is reduced to i6s. 3d. per 
capita. 

Sixteen electorates out of seventy-six have voted 
liquor out, and this number would be greatly increased 
but for the fact that so large a majority is required in 
order to abolish established drinking places. 

Concerning the attitude of women toward the no- 
license vote, which is taken during a general election, 
a leading paper says, " The University students and 
the women recorded their votes at the polls as never 
before. In eighteen electorates there was a larger per- 
centage of women votes than of men." 

In a recent paper I saw statements to the effect that 
crime had increased, the birth-rate decreased, and the 
infant mortality was a disgrace to the country, since 
women had been given the vote. I have before me the 
valuable statistics of the New Zealand year book, 
which gives official figures dealing in plain facts. Fig- 
ures speak for themselves. 

Take the birth-rate to begin with. Strange to say, 
there was a decided decrease before suffrage was 
granted. But in ten years after that event the increase 
registered 27.29 as compared with 24.20 in England, 
and during the same period the number of children of 
school age was so great that in one year alone, 1909, 
thirty-five public and one private schools were opened. 
The national increase is 18.07 P^^^ thousand, a§ against 
12.13 in England and Wales. 



The Result of the Franchise in New Zealand. 17 

The rate of infant mortality has decreased since 
women have had the suffrage, until now it is the 
lowest in the world, having decreased thirty to the 

I, GOG. 

In New Zealand the proportion of deaths of infants 
during their first year of life is 61.6, while in England 
and Wales the wee tots are swept off at the rate of 
one hundred and twenty to the 1,000, almost one hun- 
dred per cent. more. 

It is difficult to trace the relation of any of these 
questions to the fact that women in New Zealand vote. 
Yet before me is a paper in which I see the statement 
made quite seriously that the franchise given to the 
women is the direct cause of increased crime, although 
there is no attempt to trace any logical, or illogical, 
for that matter, bearing upon suffrage. 

These are the facts as set forth in the year took. 
Just mere facts. A curious feature of these criminal 
records is the statement and figures proving that so 
large a percentage of criminals hail from other parts. 
For instance, in a single year, of 3,159 persons sent to 
jail, 1,502, nearly fifty per cent., were from the United 
Kingdom, and forty-seven persons were from other 
English possessions. Sixty-eight per cent, of the 
population is made up of native-born New Zealanders, 
but of the whole number in jail only thirty-eight per 
cent, are native born. 

In conversation with a number of thinking citizens 
of New Zealand I diligently inquired what might be 
the reason of the growing and improved conditions in 
their country. Without exception they declared that 
it was directly traceable to the great extent to which 
women exercised their citizenship in outlawing the 



18 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

public house which was really the source of so much 
moral disorder; that under the normal conditions of a 
sober manhood and womanhood every phase of life 
which had a moral aspect must improve. So, after all, 
most of the questions to which my dense mind could 
trace no connection with the women's vote, were the 
direct result of women rising to a sense of their 
responsibility as Christian citizens, relative to drinking 
places. 

Among other achievements brought to a finish by 
the vote and influence of women, was the enactment 
of an equal standard of morals in making the condition 
of divorce the same for both sexes. 

Women have been admitted to practice in the law 
courts. Legal separation may be secured without any 
long drawn-out expensive process, and protection is 
afforded to working women against worthless hus- 
bands, for whom they bear children which become only 
an additional burden to overworked wives. 

A husband is now restrained from willing away his 
property as formerly could be done, without making 
suitable provision for his wife and children. 

Labor laws, with a view to improving the quarters 
in which women and girls are occupied, have been 
enacted; the health of female employees more care- 
fully guarded, and the hours of toil reduced to a 
humane limit. Holidays have been fixed, and the pay- 
ment of a minimum wage enforced. 

The economic partnership of husband and wife has 
been set forth in two acts at least, and the Criminal 
Code has been amended in the direction of purer and 
better morals. Children may now be adopted only 
under legal regulations which safeguard the child 



The Result of the Franchise in New Zealand, 19 

against either greed or abuse of foster parents. Pen- 
sions for the aged poor, both sexes being treated the 
same, now bridge over the years when men and 
women can no longer toil to the hour of a Christian 
burial instead of a pauper's grave. 

Baby farming is now an impossible evil, and those 
places which were frequently regarded with a suspi- 
cious eye, known as registry, have been brought under 
official regulation to the greater protection of women 
and girls. 

The Contagious Disease Act has been repealed; a 
Widow's Pension Act passed and enforced; the posi- 
tion and salaries of women teachers of State schools 
has been made equal with that of male teachers. But 
quite aside from the enactment, repeal or amendment 
of laws relating purely to the interests of women and 
children, great consideration has been given to new 
legislation affecting the social condition of all classes. 

Several of the leading statesmen assured me that 
they had opposed the movement for suffrage to the 
bitter end, but the practical operation of the power in 
the hands of women had been a boon beyond estimate 
to the moral tone of the country. 

The oft-repeated prophecy that casting a ballot 
would be the utter undoing of gentle and domesticated 
women, that motherhood would be a lost art and fem- 
inine graces would disappear, may all now be refuted 
after a period of practical experience, 

I have been with numbers of women to the polls in 
almost all places where they are qualified electors, and 
I have never seen the slightest indication of any lack 
of gallantry or chivalry on the part of the men. Hus- 
bands and wives suit their convenience in the matter 



20 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

of when they shall vote. Business men usually call at 
the booth and deposit their ballot — which, by the way, 
is the secret system — on their way to business, while 
women frequently plan to do their voting in connec- 
tion with their shopping or other household duties. 

The manner of voting known as the Australian 
ballot is different from the method in vogue in many 
countries. An elector enters the polling booth, gives 
his name, which has a particular number on the roll, 
and receives his voting paper. This is taken to a pri- 
vate booth, into which two voters may not enter at 
the same time, and the names of his candidates are 
marked according to set rules. The paper is folded, 
and, upon returning to the open booth, it is deposited 
through a small opening in the ballot-box which re- 
mains sealed until sunset, when the poll is closed and 
the ballots counted. 

It is a violation of the law to canvas within twenty 
feet of a booth, and a fine of £20 is imposed upon an 
elector for carrying his voting paper out of the booth. 
Under this system there can be no possible knowledge 
of how an elector casts his vote. 

The process is so simple that few mistakes can be 
made, and the possibility of corrupt practices is greatly 
decreased. 

Thus far the franchise in the hands of the women of 
New Zealand has had such wholesome moral effect 
upon all conditions that one may travel the length of 
the land and never hear an adverse criticism upon the 
sound wisdom of having raised the women of the 
country to the dignity of persons and people. Infants 
and convicts remain without the pale of the constitu- 
tion, but woman has come into her own so far as 
political classification is concerned. 



How Women of Australia Got the Franchise. 21 



CHAPTER III. 

How THE Women of Australia 
Got the Franchise. 

T 1 rHEN the spirit of democracy seemed to seize 
^ ' the people of Australia and weave itself into all 
sorts of legislation along social lines, the various States 
became the great experimental stations of the world. 
Numerous innovations were the result of each session 
of Parliament, until the world fairly stood aghast. 

In each State the franchise had been placed in the 
hands of all men over twenty-one years of age, with 
certain qualifications relating to time and place of resi- 
dence. Lunatics, idiots, and women were relegated to 
a common dumping ground, where mental capacity 
rendered them companionable, at least so far as politics 
were concerned. 

About twenty-one years ago an organization of 
women which had made the world its parish was being 
presented to the women of Australia. It was a firm 
belief of this society — the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union — ^that the misery arising from the evils 
of strong drink, relating so closely to women and chil- 
dren as well as to home life, would never be put down 
until the ballot was placed in the hands of women. 
One of the twenty branches of the work of the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union was known as 
the Franchise Department, which sought to show 
what, by giving the vote to women, could be done in 
making the world a fit place for the sons and daugh- 
ters of all men and women. 



22 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

Being greatly interested in the work, while travel- 
ling in Australia I organized more than four hundred 
branches of the society in various parts of the country. 
In connection with each union a local superintendent 
of the Franchise Department was appointed. The 
various States were organized, and finally I completed 
the chain by calling a great convention in Melbourne. 
This was the first interstate assembly of women ever 
held in Australasia. It created unbounded interest. 
Delegates came from each State. A national superin- 
tendent of the Franchise Department was chosen, 
whose duty it was to encourage the superintendents of 
each State. These in turn gathered information as to 
the work of branches, and each brought up a report of 
her department at the Interstate Convention each year. 
The quiet work of the union had a marked bearing 
upon results. Although it never created what might 
be termed a public demand for the franchise, it was, 
however, a force. 

At that time there was no movement of any wide 
extent organized with the sole object of securing the 
ballot for Australian women. And at the present 
moment I venture to say there is not one Australian 
woman in a thousand who has the faintest idea how or 
when the franchise was given to them. I have talked 
to thousands and thousands of Avomen in the Common- 
wealth, and I have never found one — not even a leader 
in any of the women's political societies — who could 
give me information as to how the franchise was 
secured. It has been necessary to go to Hansard (par- 
liamentary report) and read for weary hours through 
hundreds of pages before any intelligent understand- 
ing of the subject could be reached. 



How Women of Australia Got the Franchise. 23 

AN UNSOUGHT GIFT. 

The gift that Australia placed freely in the hands of 
the women was not forced from men by an overpower- 
ing public sentiment. Ministers and members were not 
abused, threatened, and maltreated until life became 
a burden too great to be borne; their property was 
never endangered by the advance guard of a " popular 
demand." The truth is, the average woman was 
totally indifferent to the subject, and was without even 
a passing opinion as to what good or evil might arise 
from such new responsibilities. There was a reason 
for this, and all criticism which does not consider the 
local situation at the time the franchise was granted 
is unjust in the extreme. 

Every condition in Australia was, and still is 
peculiar to itself. Women were occupied, and this is 
true to-day, in the actual settlement and development 
of the country. In both city and country it is almost 
impossible to secure help, either man or maid, and 
women are more in the grind of actual housework in 
city and town, and farm work in the country, than in 
any other part of the world. They make great sacri- 
fices to keep children at school, and heavy work de- 
volves upon those most favorably situated. They posi- 
tively had no time to know anything about the fran- 
chise or its benefits. 

In Western Australia the bill was made a cat's-paw 
to carry a party measure. Sir John Forrest was then 
Premier. For years he had used his influence against 
franchise for women, but later a State issue arose 
against which Sir John also stood. He assumed lead- 
ership of the league which put forth great energy to 
keep the State of Western Australia out of the Federa- 



24 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

tion. When Sir John suddenly changed front, his great 
anxiety was to devise a method by which he could 
carry to victory the identical issue he had worked 
strenuously to defeat. A brilliant idea dawned upon 
him : " Give women the franchise." Up to that 
moment his " political conviction " was that such a 
move would be an " unwarranted step." But necessity 
knows no bounds. Votes for women was the political 
broom used to sweep the State of Western Australia 
into the Commonwealth. Therefore, with willing 
hands and ready feet, the party made all haste to 
crown the women of the State with the political glory 
of citizenship. They were then and there created 
" persons " in their own right. But for all that, it 
must forever remain a source of humiliation to the 
women of that State, when they recall that necessity, 
and party necessity only, led the men to hand over to 
them that which should, in all justice, have been given 
when responsible government was secured to the State. 
Without the slightest preparation for citizenship, 
or any inclination to take on the responsibility in- 
volved, the women of Western Australia were thrust 
into this new situation. The official report of the first 
election at which the women voted states that out of 
the numbers of women who took the trouble to enroll, 
or whose names were placed upon the roll for them, 
only fifteen per cent, went to the polls. The following 
election, which took place three years later, witnessed 
an increase over the previous vote of but a twenty- 
eighth of one per cent. All of which proves how 
hopeless is the process of legislation in advance of 
public sentiment. 



How Women of Australia Got the Franchise. 26 

WHERE THE VOTE WAS WANTED. 

The State of Victoria was the last to grant the 
franchise to women. A study of the situation in that 
State affords conclusive proof that a demand must 
precede a supply in law-making, as well as in other 
affairs. 

The women in the other States had been full-fledged 
citizens some years before those of Victoria came into 
their own. The injustice was keenly felt, and the 
women, in large numbers, were determined to secure 
the State vote. Again and again the Lower House 
had passed the bill, but a number of animated fossils 
in the Upper House had blocked the advancement for 
years. Goaded on by the attitude of the men, women 
renewed their energy, increased their zeal, and added 
hundreds to their numbers as the fight waxed harder. 
At last the opposing voices fell into the final hush from 
which no sound is heard, and the act was promptly 
passed — in 1908 ; but, strange to say, not until women 
of that State had been voting at Commonwealth elec- 
tions for some years. 

During the time the Victorian women were fighting 
for the State franchise, and, indeed, ever since, they 
polled the largest percentage of votes in the Federal 
elections cast in any State. They wanted the fran- 
chise. They fought for it. In voting they came 
within eight per cent, of the ballot cast by the men of 
the State. The result of the recent election shows that 
the women in the rural districts, who voted under 
numerous disadvantages, such as long distances to the 
polls and lack of means to reach booths, came out in 
greater numbers than in more closely settled districts 



26 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

provided with greater facilities. The highest percent- 
age of votes cast by women in any country district 
reached 80.35, and the lowest fell to 43.18. The latter 
is the record in a suburb of Melbourne, where every 
elector was practically within walking distance of the 
booth. Three hundred and twenty-two thousand en- 
rolled, as against 297,000 men. The percentage of 
votes cast by men was 68.43. Women polled 59.12 per 
cent, of those enrolled. They are well organized, and 
there is little doubt that at future elections they will 
overtake the men. Yes, they wanted the ballot; they 
fought hard for years, and now they use it. 

In South Australia, the first Australian State to 
enfranchise women, the bill was presented by one and 
then by another of the members — with varying degrees 
of success. First, they asked for limited franchise — a 
property qualification. It was lost — very much so. 
Ten years later the text was so amended as to include 
women on an equal standing with male citizens. This 
amended measure passed in 1894, largely through the 
efforts of Sir John Cockburn. 

Those who favored the qualification clause were 
wildly opposed to equality with men. One of these 
orators concluded a dramatic exhibition of impotent 
fury by saying : " As the rights of women are recog- 
nized everywhere, from the Crown to the gallows, they 
need no place in politics." The pulse of the House 
seemed to indicate that the passage of the bill was a 
certainty. As a last attempt to stay further progress, 
an amendment was introduced making women eligible 
for Parliament. To the surprise of everyone it was 
carried — carried by a large majority, as was also the 
bill. South Australia is, however, the only State in 



How Women of Australia Got the Franchise. 27 

which women are eligible to occupy a seat in Parlia- 
ment. 

"the glory-touch." 

The Commonwealth members have now and again 
taken great credit to themselves for giving women the 
vote for the Federal Government. Every once in a 
while some member rises, halo in hand, to anoint him- 
self high priest, and claim the glory-touch of shepherd- 
ing the women into the kingdom of Federal citizen- 
ship. In reading the Commonwealth Constitution it 
will be seen that there was no other legal course open 
to them. In the clearest English it is plainly declared 
that the Federal powers may not disfranchise any per- 
son by whose vote any of them hold their seats. As 
the members from at least two States have been sent 
there partly by the votes of women, it was impossible 
to disfranchise the women of those States. Neither 
would it have been a statesmanlike move to legislate 
in favor of the women of two States and debar those 
of the other States from the same privileges. Hence, 
they were practically bound to give women of the 
whole Commonwealth the suffrage. 

Citizenship, as this record shows, having in almost 
every State been forced upon women, it is clearly seen 
that nothing short of education will lead them to a 
sense of their obligations. The situation in Australia 
can have no possible bearing upon the woman's move- 
ment in other lands. Elsewhere politicians have not 
yet fallen to the pit-level of handing over to women 
what justly belongs to them merely to use them politi- 
cally. Where women want the ballot, there they will 
make use of it. 



2,8 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

CHAPTER IV. 
Women of Australia as Citizens. 

TN order to take a calm survey as to the real 
'■■ value of the votes for women in Australia, it is 
necessary to present the absolute facts as to results, 
bearing in mind that there are numerous local situa- 
tions which obtain only in lands where women are 
pioneers. These easily account for the lack of interest 
on their part in the politics of the day. The heavy 
burdens resting upon them in this new land as 
mothers, wives, home-makers and house-keepers, rivet 
them to the grind of burdensome routine work. 

The facts here presented are gathered entirely from 
ofificial sources, and are removed in every sense from 
opinions of either myself, or others. 

It may be well at the outset to state my own personal 
views on the suffrage question, that the reader may 
understand I write wholly free from prejudice. I was 
born, reared and educated in a country where " luna- 
tics, idiots, convicts, red Indians and women" are 
declared by constitution and usage unfit for the gift 
of citizenship. I was nourished, cherished, and 
cradled in an atmosphere of belief that women had, 
of course, been properly classified. I, therefore, in 
common with the girls of my time, accepted it in the 
passive way usually extended to subjects on which we 
were not informed and in which we had no voice ; — 
satisfied, although we were not even designated as 
" people." 



Women of Australia as Citizens. 29 

It was not until I took up a systematic study of 
economics and realized woman's value along those 
lines to home and national life, that suffrage for 
women took the form of a vital principle in my mind. 
This was intensified after six weeks in the East End 
of London, where I earned my living among the people 
as organ-grinder, costermonger, selling flowers, news- 
papers, and hawking at Ludgate Hill. My experience 
there increased my conviction that there were condi- 
tions in the social order of our day which will never be 
removed until the women of the country wherein the 
evils exist have the power to help put them down. 

It was generally predicted, in reference to the ballot 
in the hand of Australian women, that it would be 
merely a matter of doubling the vote on each side, and, 
therefore, would have little effect upon politics gen- 
erally. But this conclusion was arrived at without 
any knowledge of women's real attitude toward the 
subject. 

The women electors are divided into two classes: 
those who want the vote and use it, and those who 
regard citizenship as a joke, and a very unpleasant one 
at that. Of the latter, they and their children are 
well-provided for; the pangs of hunger and the pinch 
of poverty, the grind of never-ending toil and the 
battle of simply keeping alive and staying on earth, are 
all strange to them. Without any knowledge of the 
laws that govern women and children, they are quite 
certain they have all that is to be desired by way of 
legislation. Their husbands " will look after that," 
and they have no further concern. The women of 
Australia are so delightful and so full of common- 
sense in most things, one never ceases to admire them. 



80 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

but many are not yet awakened concerning the new 
order of things which was thrust upon them almost 
before they were aware that such a movement was in 
contemplation. They are rapidly learning that to keep 
pace with the onward march of events in the 
world, an interest in citizenship is the longest measure 
in the time of progress; for, within democratic citi- 
zenship is enfolded the hidden possibilities of a new 
social order which alone will move the world upward 
and onward. 

In Australia the party spirit is so fierce and bitter 
that women labor under very great disadvantages in 
exercising the vote. Politics represent Democracy 
gone mad, on one hand, and Conservatism pot-bound, 
on the other ; the latter, too, under the abused name of 
Liberalism. Their respective policies are poles apart. 
This alone makes it impossible for women to vote for 
men. No matter what sort of a person steps out from 
obscurity with an eternal faith in. his ability as a busi- 
ness man in national affairs, he is welcome to a seat 
if he is glib of tongue and tinged with the microbe of 
words or the germ of speech. A man who has been 
a most dismal failure in personal business, seems to 
regard that fact as a supreme qualification for helping 
to conduct the business of a great nation and drawing 
a large salary. 

When a man stands for his party and there is but 
one candidate, a woman frequently regards him as 
utterly undesirable and wholly incompetent to legislate 
for the requirements of her home and children; yet, 
she must either support him or vote against her politi- 
cal conviction. So far as policy is concerned, therefore, 
it may easily be seen how great is the disadvantage 



Women of Australia as Citizens. 31 

under which the women of Australia carry out the 
duties of citizenship. The whole atmosphere for 
weeks and weeks before election is charged with a 
cruelly fierce anti-spirit. One side is just as bad as 
the other. Nothing is sacred. Personal attack is the 
usual order of an election campaign, and a capacity for 
personal abuse seems a criterion of preference. 

All of this makes it impossible to give the slightest 
idea of the political difficulties which hedge the women 
citizens of Australia about with disadvantages. The 
result of their use of the vote has not the slightest 
bearing upon any other country of the world ; for no- 
where are conditions in the least similar to those in 
which the women of Australia have their being. 

It is perfectly true that 470,000 women did not vote 
at the last Federal election ; but there was also a great 
number of men who abused the privilege; something 
more than half a million. As there are one hundred 
and eleven men to every hundred women, one may 
understand what the comparison of these figures 
means. 

It is impossible to expect the evils entrenched 
behind the mighty fortifications of man-made legisla- 
tion to fall like the walls of Jericho when some one 
sounds the blast that " woman has the vote, now we 
will see what she will do with it." Men have been 
citizens for hundreds of years, and are directly respon- 
sible for all defects of our social order, and yet the 
moment woman is dragged without asking for it (in 
Australia) from political seclusion to which usage has 
relegated her, the world expects her over-night to 
remedy the results of centuries of bad legislation. 
Well, it will never be done. Men have grown into 



32 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

enacting wise legislation, where such a thing is found, 
and women will do the very same ; therefore, men and 
women being more or less alike in some respects, no 
one need to look for revolutionized affairs in the 
twinkling of an eye. The disorders of social condi- 
tions in Australia are the outgrowth of the citizenship 
of men for many generations, and woman possesses 
no magic wand with which she may command evil to 
vanish and justice to appear. No, the process of un- 
doing a usage is a matter of the education of public 
sentiment, and before the women can progress far 
along new lines, they will have to devise some plan to 
awaken a sense of the responsibility of citizenship in 
the men of Australia as well as the women. 

The serious situation bearing upon an indifference 
to citizenship and the failure to perform their duty at 
the polls has engaged the attention of thinking men 
and women in the different States. 

In West Australia a resolution to impose a fine upon 
all qualified non-voters was passed by a society of 
women, and a committee was appointed to wait upon 
the Government requesting them to bring in a bill 
covering the situation. 

The resolution read: 

" Whereas, The ballot was thrust upon the women 
of this State to meet a political and party emergency, 
before public sentiment was ripe for it, and no effort 
has been made to educate them up to the duties and 
responsibilities of citizenship ; 

'' Resolved, That the Government be called upon to 
enforce voting, by all men and women duly qualified, 
under penalty of a fine of five pounds for the first 
offence, and a month's imprisonment for the second." 



Women of Australia as Citizens. 33 

In one of the States where voters were lax in re- 
cording their ballots a bill to enforce voting was in the 
process of contemplation when I was last in that part 
of the country. 

Such unspeakable selfishness of business and profes- 
sional men of brains and ability, and their abominable 
indifference to their duty of citizenship, have never 
been known in any other part of the world. Until some 
great national calamity arrests the attention of the best 
people, things will remain as they are. Anyone will 
drift into power — from a street-sweeper to a pie- 
peddler. 

The women are now engaged in organizing, and in 
some States such political movements flourish to an 
unexpected extent. They are strictly party movements, 
and all energy is devoted to securing a return of party 
candidates and evolving party measures. Frequently 
they work with the men's leagues of the respective 
parties, and in other cases they carry on their work as 
women's organizations. 

It must be understood that " party measure " in- 
cludes the pushing of reforms which have a direct bear- 
ing upon the community at large, quite aside from the 
interests of women and children. Frequently deputa- 
tions appear before the Ministers of one department 
after another urging some reform of wide and general 
interest. Their meetings are hives of industry, and 
live, keen activity. 

The class of women who exercise the ballot most 
extensively is made up of the wives of the working 
men, who, first of all, have a true sense of appreciation 
in being classified as people and persons. 

It must be said that the working women have a 



34 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

clearer grasp of what the use of the ballot means than 
have the women whose lines have fallen in less toil- 
some places. There is dignity, very great dignity, in 
the mere fact that women have been placed in a posi- 
tion where they have a direct voice in making the laws 
under which they and their children must live. The 
working women are keenly alive to this, and unceas- 
ingly strive to live up to the advanced position in 
which citizenship has planted them. They well know 
the power the women of Australia have in their hands, 
and, moreover, they know how to make the widest, if 
not always the wisest, use of it, largely for the reason 
that they have something to gain. If they ever move 
out from the bondage and slavery of being driven to 
vote for a given man, who alone may claim their ballot, 
they will not be slow to make calls upon candidates 
that will put men to the test. 

If the social problems demanding legislation do not 
receive the attention of Members, women are in a posi- 
tion to unseat them, and fill their places with men who 
will carry out their wishes. But as yet they are not 
united upon common issues. It will come. I have 
met nothing among women of such absorbing interest 
as the dawn of conscious power which has come upon 
them. 

In many parts of Australia a leader among the 
working women knows where to put her hand on her 
forces at any hour. Not only so, but she is able to 
marshal them into line in quick order. They are in 
small companies ready to take up marching orders at a 
second of command. Upon election days they swarm 
to party rescue from every quarter. 

Everyone loves strength. It appeals to the weakest. 



Women of Australia as Citizens. 35 

No one can look unmoved upon the condensed strength 
and power of this marching procession of women, 
advancing toward the goal of their hopes and ambi- 
tions. They have gained momentum, and an object of 
contact is certain to go into pieces before the force that 
presses them onward. All of this is the undeniable, 
indisputable, sure and certain result of the women 
rising to the obligations of citizenship. The point is 
not how or why they vote, but they vote. They are 
getting what they desire, because they have the good, 
hard, common sense to seek it through the only possi- 
ble channel of command. 

The working-women have grandly and nobly risen 
to the discharge of their duty as citizens so far as 
actual voting is concerned. For this we must give 
them full and just credit, whatever the impelling 
motive may have been. 

Numerous measures for the improvement of the 
condition of working women have come into effect in 
recent years. These, in a measure, have been brought 
about by the women through Unionism, back of the 
Parliamentary party which represents the interest of 
the working people. Most astonishing regulations 
have been made to the advantage of the toiling masses, 
both as to pay, proper work rooms and a living wage, 
There is still room for improvement, but things have 
moved, and movement means gathering momentum. 

Another serious drawback to women, or a certain 
class of women, in feeling the vital possibilities of citi- 
zenship is the attitude of certain ministers who fear 
the loss of energy to the Church if women become 
interested " outside " or take a larger view of life and 
human affairs. 



36 What Women Have Done with the Vote, 

There is often a decided note of " no politics in this 
Church," and some preachers are as afraid of the very 
name as though it stood for the arch enemy of men's 
souls. One dear soul, born out of his time, and a 
menace to his generation, calmly told me that he had 
never voted in his life. " In fact," said the godly man, 
" my citizenship is in heaven." He certainly was over- 
due where he holds his citizenship. 

The idea of Christian citizenship seems never to 
have dawned upon some church members, and even 
if it had, they became prejudiced against a candidate 
because he entertained " other views " on certain 
moral questions. Because they cannot manufacture a 
fleshly bundle of accumulated virtues and label it " my 
candidate," they calmly decline (with thanks) any 
responsibility of citizenship, and devote their entire 
energy to what is termed by them. Christian Work. 
That is, they lapse into a state of pious enchantment 
over one sinner gathered into the fold (if only for a 
day) while the lack of proper laws drives countless 
numbers to spiritual blight and bodily ruin. 

Women church members hold the balance of power. 
Let men who stand in the pulpit and have the courage 
to deal with citizenship as related to women church 
members, sound a sane note on this far-reaching sub- 
ject. This done, the Church will do something to war- 
rant support by a public which is so rapidly withdraw- 
ing, and joining other agencies for the uplift of the 
world. 

At any rate, whether preachers rise to this duty or 
not, there is no possible way for a woman, no matter 
what her position in life may be, to escape the fact that 



Women of Australia as Citisens. 37 

a duty has been placed upon her, which every instinct 
of patriotism, every sense of loyalty, and every interest 
in her home and country demands she should dis- 
charge in the normal, conscientious manner in which 
she sets about the accomplishment of her duty in home, 
church, and society. 

One other association must be mentioned which, 
although making very slow progress in point of mem- 
bership and numbers, is certainly operating upon the 
right lines. 

They claim to be non-partisan, and their general plat- 
form has been constructed so as to embrace interests 
which would attract women of either party where they 
could work to remedy defective legislation concerning 
women and children. They have placed no end of 
necessary reforms upon their program, all of which 
should appeal to every woman in the land, but up to 
the present time the interest is limited to purely party- 
freed women, or those who think they are. As they all 
vote, they must have some party preference of either 
men or measures. 

Numbers of men object very much to any organiza- 
tion which brings the women together outside of the 
party lines. They fear it would be the beginning of a 
Woman's Party, a movement which every man 
with whom I have spoken has declared would be a 
menace to women on general principles. In reply to 
my question as to why such disaster would come like a 
plague of locusts upon the land, they have usually 
answered. "A Woman's Party would be sure to elect 
women Members, and — think of it ! " 

In giving the vote to the women of Australia the 



38 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

men clearly expected mere voting to be the Alpha and 
Omega of citizenship, and that voting would be done 
purely upon party lines. They forget that there is no 
such a thing as " women's interests " as distinguished 
from men's interests. The interests are compound. 
No power on earth could separate them. What de- 
grades or uplifts one has precisely the same effect 
upon the other, and always has had; not only so, but 
always will have. Every man alive (or dead, too, for 
that matter), was born of woman: — flesh of her flesh, 
and bone of her bone ; and every woman upon the earth 
is the daughter of man. It is the merest nonsense in 
the world to talk of separate interests. There can 
never be such a thing ; there can never be anything but 
common cause between men and women under the 
present system of Creation. 

Some of the conservative element in Australia still 
look shocked over the idea of "woman in politics," and 
often regret the vote for women. But it was not the 
franchise that brought woman into politics, nor yet 
was it working for the ballot. No, they have always 
been in politics ; because politics is everywhere in their 
home where they must live, move and have their being. 

The woman faces politics when she takes her tea, 
when she puts on her dress, when she feeds her 
chained and licensed dog, when she reads the news- 
paper, when she sits on the charity board, when she 
sends a loaf of bread to a poor drunkard's family, 
when her son puts his first money on a race horse, and 
when every other licensed evil threatens her home and 
happiness. It is because women have always been help- 
lessly and hopelessly in politics even when shut within 



Women of Australia as Citizens. 39 

four walls, that they are, or should be, most interested 
citizens. That interest is growing in Australia as else- 
where, and the world may just as well be calm and 
accept it as a necessary feature of the age in which we 
live as to waste life and energy defying the Fates. 



40 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 



CHAPTER V. 

Some Laws Relating to Women and Children 
IN Australia. 

A S in other countries, the women of Australia, gen- 
-^"^ erally speaking, are alarmingly ignorant of the 
laws under which they live. Few, indeed, have the 
slightest knowledge of even their legal relation to their 
children; and as for their status, it is as unknown to 
them as the most remote foreign subject. 

Although women have been made equal with men, 
so far as voting is concerned, the most appalling ine- 
quality in their legal status obtains in every State of 
the Commonwealth. This is most glaring in regard to 
punishment for given offences ; in provision made by 
some of the States for the housing of offenders against 
the law as in the case of State wards ; especially in 
relation to the conduct of women in public places. 
There are offences in public streets for which a police- 
man places his hand upon a woman and brings her to 
account for her deportment before the law, — ^while a 
man, guilty of similar conduct, merely acts up to the 
privileges which are granted by men to men. 

A girl who, with painted face and brazen mien, 
flaunts her calling in the face of a man on the street, 
who objects to her boldness and, with righteous unc- 
tion, seeks to " put down " her kind, may hand her 
over to the police. He may prefer charges against 
her, being the sole witness, on whose evidence she is 
sentenced, and the law is often meted out according to 



Laws Relating to Women and Children in Australia. 41 

the standing of the outraged male victim. She pays 
the penalty. " Men and women sin two by two, but 
they pay for it one by one." Woman is the one. 

A man may outrage every sense of decency by im- 
proper advances and proposals to a woman in the 
street. Unless he is in a state of intoxication, she has 
no redress. A man who is really out of his normal 
mind under the influence of liquor is legally respon- 
sible to the law for his liberties with women on a 
public highway; but a brute, clothed as a gentleman, 
about whom there is no sign by which to take warning 
as in the case of a drunken man, may freely manifest 
his brutalized nature in the face of self-respecting 
women citizens, and there is no appeal for them. The 
poor drunkard is the victim of the law, and a woman, 
— well, if she is fleet of foot, she may escape if there 
are lights which would make pursuit on his part 
unsafe. 

V/omen would be horrified if one boldly declared 
that no mother in the Commonwealth really owned her 
children. The only child whose ownership is vested in 
the mother is the one born out of wedlock. When it 
becomes a matter of disgrace, the mother and innocent 
child must forever bear the brand. The law says it is 
hers; she may have, hold, possess and own it. Fur- 
thermore, it must be registered in the mother's name 
as an illegitimate child. A child born in wedlock may 
not carry his mother's name and omit his father's, ex- 
cept by special Act of Parliament. If the mother is able 
to produce evidence — proof positive — as to the father, 
which is a most difficult matter in the face of the 
numerous legal safeguards, he is required to make a 
small contribution to the support of mother and child. 



42 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

This, however, is so far from being adequate to keep 
them from starvation that the mother, often a mere 
girl, is driven to every extremity in order to support 
her offspring. It usually ends in the child going to 
some institution or becoming a charge of the State. 
If the father is unmarried, it is an easy matter to 
escape the clutches of the law, and go where he will be 
quite free to continue his criminal career. 

In Victoria, an effort was made to wipe out this vile 
system, which would have been a disgrace to the dark 
ages, by the introduction into Parliament of a bill 
modelled upon the laws enacted in Switzerland. The 
object in view was to check the evil before it assumed 
the shocking and alarming proportions it has reached 
in many parts of Europe. 

The bill set forth that all children of this class whose 
parentage could be made clear, must be registered in 
the father's name, the child of an illegitimate father. 
As every child comes into the world along the lines 
of the one and only law prescribed by the Almighty, 
it follows that there is no such thing as an illegitimate 
child. The illegitimate proceeding is on the part of the 
father, and he should bear the disgrace. Hence the 
justice of the child bearing the father's name. 

The bill further provided, in cases where the father 
was a married man, that this child should have an equal 
claim upon his property with those of his legal wife. 
If the father chanced to be unmarried, he must at 
once assume legal relation to the child by marrying the 
mother. In a country of progressive and experimental 
legislation, it is by no means surprising to learn of the 
introduction of such a bill. The astounding part of 
it is that the majority against it was but one vote. 



Laws Relating to Women and Children in Australia. 43 

Never has a more heroic measure been undertaken 
than this effort to protect innocent childhood. It is 
certain that in the near future an enlightened public 
sentiment will bring Victoria out of the moth-eaten 
and iron-rusted usages of bygone times, by passing a 
similar bill. 

Meantime the entire responsibility rests upon the 
women voters. What are they citizens for if not to 
know something of the laws under which they live, 
and to use their mighty power of citizenship to remove 
these abuses ? 

Until this is done the ancient legislation which took 
rootage in the Rock of Ages, will still disgrace the 
statute books of the States and Commonwealth. No 
degree of advanced legislation can be termed demo- 
cratic until it first of all obliterates sex. 

So far as I am able to learn there is not one of the 
States in which girls are properly protected by law. 
Because of the activity of women's societies the laws 
are greatly improved, but at most the age of consent is 
not above sixteen years — the very time when girls 
need every possible protection of both home and State. 

A child who cannot legally sell her doll or her toys 
may sell her virtue. A man may place a sovereign, or 
a shilling for that matter, in a girl's hand as the price 
for which he traffics in virtue, and there is no redress 
for the girl and no punishment for the man. In regard 
to a girl's material possessions, the law argues that 
until she is twenty-one she is not sufficiently balanced 
and lacks judgment and experience to enable her to 
safely possess houses and lands. 

False ideas on the part of mothers, and criminal fail- 
ure to impart to girls the information which will make 



44 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

them capable of self-protection by a knowledge 
of self, render them easy prey and victims. Girls 
will never be properly protected in that or any other 
country until women, as citizens, make it their busi- 
ness to see that proper laws are enacted, and moth- 
ers back up the laws by some common-sense teach- 
ing on these subjects in the home. Ignorance is by 
no means innocence; frequently quite the reverse. 
Girls learn by experience out of their homes to their 
sorrow those things which should form the chief fea- 
ture of the home education of every girl. 

The most absurd laws regulate the relation of father 
and mother to their children and the property of those 
children. It is a matter on which women in general 
have bestowed little thought. 

In some States the father practically owns the chil- 
dren. A dying husband may absolutely will away an 
unborn child. When he is dead and six feet of sod 
cover him, his morally criminal action becomes a living 
force, the effects of which will never die. No depth of 
sod could keep down his responsibility. Cases of this 
sort are on record, and are a matter of present-day 
experience. A mother cannot appoint guardians for 
her children in her will unless her husband is divorced. 
A husband may will away his entire possessions leav- 
ing his wife and children utterly destitute. A wife has 
no legal claim upon his property so far as his ability 
to dispose of it by will is concerned. 

When it comes to a sense of justice, or even logic in 
lawmaking, men are certainly very curious. So gro- 
tesque is woman's position concerning property, it 
would be amusing as well as absurd were it not for the 
cruel operation of the law. For instance, when a son 



Laws Relating to Women and Children in Australia. 46 

has acquired property, but failed in the good sense to 
also possess himself of non-assessable chattels — as a 
woman and children — such an one, dying without will, 
the law gives his possessions to " his next of kin," 
which, being interpreted, means his father. By what 
process of logic it is reasoned out that the father is 
next of kin to a mother's children is not at all clear to 
the dense mind of a woman. I am here reminded of 
the reasoning power of a little boy on the subject. The 
said boy was given four shillings with which to pur- 
chase Christmas presents for his father and mother. 
The day before he was to bestow his choice of gifts 
upon his happy parents, he shyly approached his 
mother, saying, " Mother, I spent the money. I paid 
three shillings for a present for you, and one shilling 
for one for father." The astonished mother inquired 
into this favoritism on her behalf, to find that her hope- 
ful son had expended the money after a most logical 
process of analysis which should wholly vindicate his 
action. 

" Well, you see, mother," said the child, " father is 
related to me only by marriage, but you are related to 
me by bornation." 

Where does " bornation " logically and legally come 
in in " next of kin " ? A question for women citizens 
to answer. 

Again, if a wife dies intestate, all her property goes 
to the husband. Few women seem aware of this. If, 
however, a man dies under similar circumstances, one- 
third goes to his wife and the remainder to the chil- 
dren. The manner in which the former law may work 
itself out was illustrated in the case of a most unscru- 
pulous man marrying a woman of means chiefly be- 



46 What Women Have Done 'with the Vote. 

cause of her possessions. She inherited by will the 
large estates of her first husband at his death, as well 
as a goodly heritage from her parents. These she 
held, not in trust, but as her own, from which she 
planned to educate her daughters. Meantime, she 
married a second husband to whom she bore two sons. 

While out with her family an accident befell them in 
which she was instantly killed, passing away without a 
will. This left the property willed to her by her first 
husband, and that to which she fell heir from her 
parents, absolutely to the second husband. Note the 
operation of the law. He at once made his will in 
favor of his own children, and the bulk of the estates 
at his death passed into the hands of his boys ; leaving 
but meagre provisions for his wife's three daughters. 
Strange that women citizens accept such possible in- 
justice through a legal channel as the heritage of their 
children with full power in their hands to right every 
wrong ! 

There is also that relic of the ages so remote that 
one can hardly recall the " when " of it, — the unequal 
grounds for divorce ; giving man all the advantage and 
license which was granted, or rather which he took 
when Time was still young. 

The legal establishment of two codes of morals in 
the divorce Law Courts, one for men and one for 
women, is strangely out of tune with the setting of a 
new country. But here it is flourishing in a number of 
the States. An aroused public sentiment — if it could 
be created — would overturn such injustice during a 
single sitting of Parliament, if women voters were 
alive to their duty. 

I| would be impossible to record all the inequalities 



Laws Relating to Women and Children iti Australia. 47 

which exist in the statutes of this great Common- 
wealth, 

The same distinction is carried down even to the 
institutions provided by the State for men and women, 
who, in one way or another, became either temporary 
or permanent wards of the State. 

Take for illustration one of the prisons where I 
went over the quarters assigned to the men and those 
set apart for the women. Compare one feature only — 
that of bathing facilities. The men's quarters were 
properly partitioned off. They enjoyed that sense of 
privacy due to every human being, no matter how un- 
fortunate his estate. But the women's quarters, what 
were they like? Merely a series of tubs side by side. 
Each was open, and they were ranged along the wall 
without regard to that degree of common decency to 
which a man or a woman is entitled, no matter what 
may be the unfortunate conditions to which they have 
come. That the slightest distinction in the measure of 
comfort provided for men and women should be made 
in favor of men, is a blemish not only upon men 
responsible for the injustice, but upon all citizens who 
sit idly by and tolerate abuses to which they could put 
an end by taking an intelligent interest in the well- 
being of those about them. 



48 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Suffrage as Related to the Birth-rate 
IN Australia. 

TN searching for straws with which to prop up argu- 
■*■ ments to prove the failure or evil results of women 
exercising the rights of citizenship, irresponsible 
persons and an antiquated section of the press have 
boldly asserted that the decreased birth-rate of Aus- 
tralia was due solely to the enlarged political status of 
women. They have gone so far as to say that women 
are so utterly consumed with public activities, and so 
fascinated by the novelty, as to refuse to pursue the 
usual domestic highway, with the direful effect upon 
the birth-rate. 

Another grave charge is the evidence in the children 
of the lack of home training indicated by " rude man- 
ners " in the average Australian child. 

Mothers of all classes are overworked. This is one 
situation which cannot be overcome by the possession 
of money. It all revolves around the cruel lack of 
domestic help. The entire supervision of the house, 
often housework itself, including the washing, de- 
volves upon the mother. Then, there is the care of the 
children : the making and mending, not to mention the 
individual training which no real mother can neglect. 
Church work and social obligations are demands 
which must be met to a greater or less extent. 

In thousands of cases, all detail falls to a single pair 
of hands. Often the strain is more than flesh and 



Suffrage as Related to Birth-rate in Australia. 49 

bones can endure. At the very outset, then, it must 
be remembered that the mother is under great nerve 
and energy strain almost every moment of her waking 
hours. 

As population increases some of these difficulties 
may vanish. It is doubtful, however, as the cause of 
the condition gives no token of change. Domestic 
help is simply impossible. 

This state of affairs calls for greatly revised 
methods of housekeeping, which, in less-favored climes 
would be out of the question. The nursery is trans- 
ferred to the open, either the lawn or sand, where even 
the baby is free to crawl about at will — investigating 
the mud-pies and play-houses of the elder ones. If 
one of them trips and falls, unless injured, the busy 
mother calls from some point where she has them in 
sight, " Get up ; that's a little man," or " Don't cry, 
don't be a baby." The tears are dried without cod- 
dling, and the imaginary hurt is cured without any 
interruption on the part of the always busy mother. 
This does not mean neglect, but it spells in very large 
letters the beginning of independence of children so 
noticeable in Australia. 

They play out-of-doors from one week-end to an- 
other, and live in the open as much as possible. They 
romp, scamper, roll, and frolic, and they yell and 
shout, for they are lusty young creatures. As this 
continues day by day out of doors, it may easily be 
seen how, when in the house, they often forget to 
lower their voices, walk softly, or close the doors 
without a bang. The romp and fun spirit is still upon 
them, and what mig^ht be considered most objection- 



60 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

able manners is but a lack of consciousness that lawn 
deportment should be subdued in the house. 

It is perfectly true that the great majority of chil- 
dren are sadly deficient in the personal charm of pleas- 
ing manners, which is by no means a " station of life " 
defect. They are very excitable by temperament, and 
scamper to the doors, windows, fence or gate, at every 
possible opportunity to cheer or yell. They love to watch 
processions, funerals or a circus; crowd to foolball 
games, prize fights, races, or any manner of sport at 
which those of tender years are allowed. They bet, hur- 
rah, and manifest for their " side," regardless of fair 
play or other considerations. Crowding the picture 
shows, they scream, shout, and fairly roar and hoot or 
clap in following the keynote sounded by the audience. 
The truth is, children are often given too much liberty 
along apparently harmless lines, but which, in reality, 
have a reflex action most questionable in effect. A 
love for healthy sport is wholesome and a normal con- 
dition to vigorous childhood, but an over-developed 
love for pleasure and excitement is bad, very bad. 

This independent spirit among the children, and 
their assumed ability to look after themselves gives an 
unfavorable impression as to the proper training in 
the home. It is erroneous so far as a large percentage 
of homes is concerned. 

In time the romp wears off. The " good will to 
others," which is really the spirit of the child, finds 
expression later in a grace of manner that will, in the 
future, stand to the credit of the young people of 
Australia. 

It must not be supposed that the children are always 
left to themselves. The real charm of the mother is 



Suffrage as Related to Birth-rate in Australia. 61 

that sha makes time for " the children's hour." How 
they love it! How the mother loves it! And how 
often the dad joins in. Yes, the children's hour 
moulds many a life. It is a supreme balancing factor 
in thousands of homes. 

" Between the dark and the daylight, 

When the night is beginning to lower. 
Comes a pause in the day's occupation 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

" They climb up into my turret. 

O'er the arms of my great armchair; 
If I try to escape they surround me — 
They seem to be everywhere." 

Longfellow knew. Many a time have I seen the 
rhythm of these expressive lines set to the music of 
action. Often a mother has said, " I must now have 
my hour with the children. Take a book and come 
with me." Under a pretext of reading, but really to 
join in the delight of that most enchanting hour, I 
have followed to the upper room, where a great con- 
sciousness of all that I have missed in life has come 
again and again with an overpowering sense. 

The children had prepared each other for bed and 
were eagerly anticipating their hour — ^their very own 
hour. First came the mother's talk on the conduct 
of the day, and how they had treated each other. 
Then followed apologies for rudeness, kisses of for- 
giveness, a general clearing up of all the day's 
accounts, ready to begin a new and clean page on the 
morrow. After these confessions, not wrung from 
them, the puckered lips, moist eyes, and the sweet 



62 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

resolve to be better to-morrow, happiness reigns in 
each little heart — then comes a chapter of the favor- 
ite story, followed by a romp with dad. The day 
closes with clasped hands and upturned faces as they 
kneel about the mother's knee, — then, O the joy of it! 
the good-night kisses, each resolved to have the " last." 
In hundreds of homes have I seen this beautiful 
sight repeated with varying details, as a hard-worked 
mother finished the day of grind and struggle, with the 
never-ceasing hope that she will be able to stir the 
very best in her children into action. 

" The greatest battles that ever were fought, 
I'll tell you where and when — 
On the maps of the world you will find them not, 
For they were fought by the mothers of men." 

I would not pretend for a moment to say that this 
picture is a true one of every home in Australia. I 
wish it were. But it is quite within bounds to state 
that there are hundreds of thousands of just such 
homes, not confined to one class, but in every walk 
of life. There are thousands of mothers deeply inter- 
ested in national life because they know the highest 
interests of their children are at stake in the making of 
the laws under which they must grow up. But inter- 
est in a given subject by no means indicates the neglect 
of all others in order to serve one only. 

A decrease of birth-rate prevails chiefly in the 
families of the high middle class : among women of 
culture and refinement. It is not shrinking from a 
responsibility that has produced this result, but a deep 
understanding of how great is the responsibility, and 



Suffrage as Related to Birth-rate in Australia. 53 

what the rearing of a family up to the present-day 
requirements means. Much more is expected of a 
child now than formerly. There was a time when a 
very limited education was sufficient for girls. They 
married young, and domestic life bounded their hori- 
zon. Not so to-day. Girls, as well as young men, are 
less and less inclined to marry, but are generally dis- 
posed towards business pursuits, for which they must 
be trained. It is a day of specialty. To succeed in the 
world means to be prepared to the point of excellence 
in some one thing, and go at it in earnest. This in- 
volves greater expense in rearing a family and pro- 
viding all that is expected for them until they are 
grown, and properly launched in life. As the children 
come along one by one it usually means increasing sac- 
rifice on the part of a mother, which often reaches the 
point of giving up all extras for herself, and ends in 
doing without help. At last, over-worked, she lands in 
nervous prostration and general wreckage. The 
demands are so much greater than energy of flesh and 
bones, that mothers must go to the wall physically and 
children fall behind the requirements, or families 
become less. 

Although marriage has decreased and the birth-rate 
per family is on the decline, the increase in population 
among the white race is greater than it has ever been. 
This is due to the diminished percentage of mortality 
among children, especially infants during the first year 
of their lives. The infant death-rate is the lowest 
in Australia and New Zealand of any country 
of the world. The study of child-life now ranks among 
the scientific studies in Australia. In the medical pro- 
fession there are men who devote all their time to the 



64 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

treatment of children's diseases. Nurses are specially 
qualified to care for them, and hospital work for the 
little folk is one entirely aside from any relation to 
adults. It is the children's day, and the women of 
Australia are helping to make it so. They are now 
being made ready for the world and life. The greatest 
advance in any science of modern times is in that 
directed toward the conservation of infant life. 

In poor settlements in the midst of city life thou- 
sands of mothers are instructed in the care of infants. 
The most highly-trained nurses go before them and 
demonstrate, by object lessons, how to best care for 
a child in every particular. Then, too, child diseases 
are better understood and the whole situation of 
infant mortality has been grasped to the saving of 
infants, which, set over against the birth-rate, and the 
diminished percentage of marriage, still leaves an 
increase in the population. Until the science of child- 
life is equally understood among dark races there is 
little danger of the white race being swamped. In 
China, eight children out of ten die the first year. 
Among white races only three out of ten die. 

Over a hundred years ago the younger Malthus 
wrote an essay on the " Principle of Population." The 
idea was entirely new. No one had ever figured out 
such an astounding proposition. His father, who was 
also considered an authority on the question of popula- 
tion, could hardly grasp the truth of the figures; for 
the young man proved that in an alarmingly short time 
the earth would cease to yield a supply of food equal 
to the population. His theory was not accepted in his 
day, but those who are familiar with the work of 
Professor Brentane will know that the most accurate 



Suffrage as Related to Birth-rate in Australia. 65 

calculation known to mathematical science has proved 
that Malthus' " Principles " were quite correct. The 
professor says : " The consequence has been an abso- 
lutely unprecedented increase of population, and if it 
were to continue at the same rate as within the last 
twenty-five years, there would in 893.35 years be one 
European to every metre (about forty inches) of sur- 
face of the globe ; and if we include the other races, we 
should in a thousand years stand shoulder to shoulder. 
This means that there would not be a foot of soil any- 
where on the earth's surface for food production." 
From these facts it may be seen how necessary it is 
before alarmists set out to harangue the public from 
platform, pulpit and press, to look into the subject in 
all of its bearings and become familiar with facts. 

There are other phases of this question which will 
have a very marked effect, not only on the future per- 
centage of the birth-rate, but also upon the vigor of 
oncoming generations. Women, in Australia espe- 
cially, have advanced in a knowledge of scientific 
motherhood. They are seriously considering them- 
selves as life-givers. In contemplating the far-reach- 
ing consequences as such, they have a new and en- 
larged vision of their life-giving rights, as well as of 
their responsibilities. Science has come to their aid, 
and declared that no living woman, no matter how 
strong she may be, can do justice to children either by 
way of care or otherwise, unless there is at least a 
period of three and a half or four years between births. 
Women have come to feel that in the best interests of 
the future race, it is better to rear three or four phy- 
sically sound and mentally fit, citizens, than to help 
swell the increasing flood of poorly-equipped speci- 



56 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

mens of humanity that make up so large a number of 
the rank and file of the race. Yes, women are begin- 
ning to see that there is one supreme and sacred right 
which they, as life-givers must demand. That is to 
decide when they are mentally, spiritually and physi- 
cally able to take on the conditions of motherhood and 
carry them out to the highest betterment of the human 
family. It is a well-known fact that less care is given 
to improve the human family by proper time, and sea- 
sons of birth, than there is to preserving a particular 
breed of swine or sheep. 

Evidence is now being heard concerning the use 
of the totalizator as a gambling agency. One witness 
pointed out that the abolition of the machine would 
seriously affect horse-breeding. Nothing was stated, 
however, as to the effect upon the human race. It is 
surprising, in looking over the financial statement of 
the State Treasurer, to learn the vast sums expended 
on the care of the mentally and physically unfit, and 
recall that no legislation has been passed to prevent 
the procreation of unfit. Women citizens are now 
considering these great and vital factors in their new 
relations to true national development. 

By scientific process the silkworms of France were 
once saved to that country by destroying the eggs of 
the diseased worm. This same process is carried out 
in most orders of lower animal life to improve stock; 
but when woman conceives the idea of producing a 
fit human race in the only possible way — that is, when 
she herself is fit to become a life-giver — ^then the very 
air is rent with libellous utterances concerning her 
scientific attitude toward her own off-spring, and 
squint-brained so-called students (?) of affairs feel 



Suffrage as Related to Birth-rate in Australia. 67 

called upon to make themselves absurd by dealing with 
situations as seen only through a smoked glass. 

No railing or wailing, no groans, or moans, or 
abuse, will move women in their fixed and determined 
purpose to safeguard the future generations. The 
women of Australia are very much alive on some 
questions; there is no doubt whatever about that. 

I have before me the official report issued by the 
Department of Defence. An act of universal training 
for military defence was passed some time ago. This 
sets forth that all boys between the ages of thirteen and 
fourteen must go into training until eighteen years of 
age. This is compulsory. Of about 100,000 who pre- 
sented themselves for medical examination in the 
Commonwealth, 2.7 per cent, were temporarily unfit; 
that is, they were suffering from some physical defects 
which would be remedied in time. 

Out of the whole number, the very small percentage 
of 3.5 were found wholly unfit for training. In round 
numbers about 4,000 out of 100,000 were rejected. It 
is very doubtful if any other country could clear so 
large a percentage of physically sound lads, between 
the ages of thirteen and fourteen years. 

There seems little danger of the decay of the race, 
while voting women are able to point to such results, 
and insist that this new land shall be made up of 
quality, leaving women to regulate quantity. 



58 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

CHAPTEE VII. 
Aims of Australian Women Citizens. 

npHERE is a widespread feeling among thoughtful 
•*■ women in Australia that the boasted " equality " 
of the sexes is more or less a farce. As a matter of 
fact that equality extends scarcely beyond the privilege 
of casting a vote. 

Whatever opinions we may entertain as to the 
bounds which should limit woman's activity, we are all 
agreed that the principle established in the justice of 
the equal right of women with men in the matter of 
voting should be applied to all things which pertain 
to men and women. If there is to be no recognized 
sex at the ballot-box, there should be none in either 
the enactment of or carrying out of the laws. This 
phase of woman's status seems not yet to have dawned 
upon the men of Australia, but the women are begin- 
ning to think — some of them. 

One association of women, which claims to be non- 
partisan in political creed, has set it down as part of 
their " fighting platform " that absolute equality must 
be the final goal toward which they steadily move. 
First, they are asking that women should be made eli- 
gible for the positions of aldermen and councillors. 

It is rather remarkable that women may be elected 
to the Commonwealth Parliament, but in only one 
State may they enjoy the same privilege, and the 
Municipal Acts limit the qualifications for election as 
aldermen to men only. In fact, the act states in the 
plainest English — " any man." The seats are safe- 



Aims of Australian Women Citizens. 69 

guarded from any presumption that women are en- 
titled to occupy them by eHminating the word " per- 
sons." 

A claim is also being put in to give women the right 
to sit on juries. The act defining qualification for such 
service states " any man," etc., as also does that which 
pertains to the appointment of a justice of the peace. 
Thus the citadel of masculine power and monopoly in 
the municipal arena is being bombarded by a demand 
for equality on the part of the women, 

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 

As in most parts of the world, the divorce and mar- 
riage laws operate in Australia in a widely different 
way when applied to men than when women are being 
measured by their standards. Perhaps the greatest 
fight in the near future will take place upon these 
points of legislation. In one State — West Australia — 
a bill was brought in to equalize the divorce laws, and 
after a hard and bitter fight, it was carried; but the 
women of the State worked hard for it, and finally suc- 
ceeded. 

It is now the purpose of the women to try to have 
these laws unified and taken over by the Federal Gov- 
ernment. This power is delegated to the Common- 
wealth Government, but as yet they have not taken up 
the matter of a universal marriage and divorce law 
for all States applying equally to men and women. 

At the present time the rights of the father over the 
child differ greatly from those of the mother, both as 
to ownership and guardianship; as also are those 
which relate to the wife's share in the accumulation of 
the marriage partnership. 



60 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

There has been more or less agitation on the part of 
certain societies of women for these reforms, but as 
yet there is nothing like a general demand for an 
alteration of the law from the rank and file of women. 
The process of education is slow and hard. Women, 
as a whole, are not thinking, but the persistent manner 
in which a section of them " keep at it " brings hope to 
the hearts of the leaders. 

That " hardy annual " which flourishes at all seasons 
of the year in the form of a demand for a given wage, 
regardless of sex, for an equal standard of work, is 
always to the fore. In the agitation there seems to be 
the absence of any true test as to the comparative eco- 
nomic value of women and men in the labor market. 
But even if a true analysis of comparative values 
throws the balance against women, they should still 
agitate for a more equal rate of pay for woman's ser- 
vice than that which is now in practice. 

EDUCATION. 

There are at present no women inspectors of the 
public schools. It is rather ridiculous to see a full- 
grown man among the little girls just learning to sew, 
fingering over their needlework when he does not 
know a hem from a binding, or a bias from a gore. 
It is just as absurd to watch his movements in the 
domestic science department as he wanders loose and 
at large among the pots and pans, hardly knowing a 
saucepan from a tea-kettle. 

There is much dissatisfaction concerning the regula- 
tions of the Educational Department, especially in 
regard to the restrictions placed uDon women in the 



Aims of Australian Women Citizens. 61 

higher schools of learning. The women are desirous of 
making the universities perfectly free to any student 
qualified to enter. Their object is to give the clever 
children among the working classes an equal chance 
with those more favored by fortune to rise to the high- 
est place of usefulness. 

It is further proposed to agitate for equality of men 
and women in filling the positions of teachers, pro- 
fessors, and governors in similar proportion. 

As there is great need of dealing with the question 
of help in the home, it is proposed to elevate the occu- 
pation of homekeeping to that of a science in order to 
induce a higher class of girls to adopt it. To this end 
there will soon be a struggle for the erection of a 
Domestic Science College, the chair to be filled by a 
qualified woman. 

Under the system of boarding out children who 
become wards of the State, it is usual to pay a foster 
mother or allow an institution the sum of five shillings 
a week for the maintenance of each child, but in the 
event of a father dying, the natural mother is allowed 
but two-and-sixpence a week. Just why this great 
financial distinction should be made in favor of a foster 
mother when the advantages of a natural mother are 
perfectly obvious does not appear. However, the 
women citizens have started an agitation to reform 
the situation, and place the natural mother upon an 
equal financial footing with the foster parent. 

Street soliciting is a misdemeanor in women only, 
and a host of other inequalities are now so glaringly 
unjust that if citizenship for women means anything at 
all, surely combined action will remedy these defects 



62 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

of legislation by wiping sex out of the statute books 
altogether. There is a great work for the women of 
this new land to do, and as the responsibility of citi- 
zenship slowly dawns upon them, they will move in 
solid ranks toward the goal of absolute equality. 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 63 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Woman's Vote in Finland. 

T^HE women of Finland occupy a unique position 
"*• among those of the North lands. When the fran- 
chise was granted to them it meant more than merely 
the power to cast a vote for a given candidate, and 
thus aid him to a seat in Parliament. 

Most extraordinary political conditions prevailed in 
Finland at that time. Women, although without the 
vote, had worked shoulder to shoulder with men in 
every effort made to sustain the degree of liberty and 
freedom which they enjoyed when Finland became a 
possession of the Russian Crown. 

As time passed Finland was robbed of the Constitu- 
tion guaranteed in the written pledges of five Czars. 
Later Russia became involved in the disastrous war 
with Japan, and still later the empire passed into a 
state of revolution. Taking advantage of the situa- 
tion, the Finns demanded the restoration of their Con- 
stitution, and, while they were about it, they very 
wisely asked for a number of reforms not given there- 
tofore. 

Besides asking for the reorganization of Parliament, 
they demanded full and complete suffrage for all 
adults over twenty-five years of age. Up to that time 
even male franchise was greatly restricted: — defined 
chiefly by a property clause which gave as many as 
twenty votes to individual landowners. 

The people were very much in earnest over the mat- 
ter, so much so that a unique form of demonstration 



64 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

was carried out. It is doubtful if a similar movement 
ever took place upon a purely political question, and 
up to the present no one seems able to explain just 
how it all came about. 

Without plan, system, method, or arrangement, the 
whole country entered upon a general strike. The Eus- 
sian capital was as completely shut off from Finland 
as though it had been located on Mars. Every cog and 
wheel in the industrial world came to a stop; trains 
and tramcars seemed frozen to the rails, and all vehi- 
cular traffic was suspended. Hotels and business 
houses shut their doors ; and marketing places, for the 
purchase of food supplies, were open only two hours 
a day. Drinking shops of all kinds were closed for 
a month, church bells pealed and rang day and night, 
bands of musicians paraded the streets, and the forbid- 
den flag of Finland was floated in full view from 
numerous heights. Children refused to go to school, 
and marched in the streets singing patriotic songs, and 
great mass meetings were held in public places at 
which the speakers loudly clamored for full adult suf- 
frage — men and women upon equal terms. The dawn 
of the Day of Judgment could not have been more 
startling. 

THE czar's assent. 

After the Finnish Parliament had passed the meas- 
ure — which was carried without a single opposition 
vote — to grant enlarged franchise to men, and to in- 
clude women under the same conditions, a leading 
statesman was commissioned to take the document to 
Russia for the signature of the Czar. 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 65 

Whatever that ruler's opinion may have been as to 
the unwisdom of the measure, w^ith his Empire dis- 
credited in warfare before the eyes of the whole world, 
his subjects in a state of open revolt, and his own life 
in danger day and night, the Czar could see that the 
loyalty of Finland was not to be despised. Upon read- 
ing the clause in reference to giving the vote to 
women, his Majesty inquired, " Is that a wise meas- 
ure ? " To this the statesman replied by stating a 
plain, unvarnished fact: "Your Majesty, there is a 
general demand for the clause." Enough said ! It 
was signed, and the Constitution was restored to Fin- 
land in 1905. 

Well, the women were full-fledged citizens when the 
Commissioner returned to Finland, subject only to the 
same restrictions by which men were hedged about. 
Thus, by a stroke of the pen, the voting population 
was increased from 320,000 to about 1,500,000. Farm 
hands, factory workers, women, and peasants generally 
were elevated to the status of " persons and people." 

Before the restoration of the Constitution the legis- 
lative body was divided into four sections, represent- 
ing the clergy, the peasantry, the towns and cities, and 
the nobility. (I would like to point out here that not 
one of these lifted a voice against the proposition to 
enfranchise women. I know of scarcely another case 
in which there was so com.pl ete a victory.) Now all 
the members are elected by popular vote. There is 
but one Chamber, composed of two hundred members. 
Women are eligible to seats. The largest number of 
women representatives at any one time reached 
twenty-five. 



66 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT. 

In attending the opening of the Finnish Parliament, 
a short time ago, I saw nothing unusual in the pres- 
ence of the women among the lawmakers. In fact, 
they were not by any means an outstanding feature of 
the gathering. In no way could they have been classi- 
fied as abnormal. They were not quarantined like 
pest-stricken persons, but appeared a perfectly normal 
part of the assembly. The seating arrangements are in 
sections of two, and the women looked quite at home 
comfortably seated beside their fellow lawmakers. With 
the natural ease and grace which distinguishes a lady 
in the drawing-room, they took their part in national 
housekeeping with an intelligent dignity which is cer- 
tainly a credit to womankind. Neither members nor 
onlookers could say that their presence obtruded itself 
anywhere. 

At present there are fourteen women members. A 
number of these are peasants representing the rural dis- 
tricts. They are peasants pure and simple, in looks, 
dress, and general bearing, with far too much intelli- 
gence to attempt to be anything else. They represent 
the nerve and sinew of the country and the develop- 
ment of national resources — a class which should be 
fully and well represented. But there are not peasant 
members only; the women have been elected from all 
classes of society, as well as every shade of political 
creed, for they are pretty equally distributed among 
the four parties. 

I would like to point out the wonderful advantage 
these women citizens have over those who have the 
vote in other parts of the world. Here there are four 
parties from which a woman may select her candidate. 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 67 

This gives her a chance to vote for men and measures 
instead of being bound to a party. In countries Hke 
Austraha, for instance, where there are but two 
parties, women have no clioice of men. They must 
either support their party and an objectionable candi- 
date or vote to support a poHcy with which they have 
no sympathy. This disadvantage to the Austrahan 
women voters should always be taken into considera- 
tion in dealing with the results of the use of the vote 
by women in that country. It is a vital point. 

A REFINING INFLUENCE. 

To return to the Finnish women members ; as stated, 
they represent all classes. I spent an evening in the 
beautiful and well-regulated home of a little woman 
who is a Doctor of Philosophy, is at the head of the 
Government Bureau of Statistics, and also a member 
of Parliament. Another woman member also holds 
the same degree from the local university, in which 
seven hundred girls are students, three of whom are in 
the Divinity Department. 

There are in Parliament one baroness, two wives 
of university professors, the head of a large school for 
girls, a teacher of history in one of the leading schools, 
also the wives of men widely known in the world of 
business and commerce in Finland — all of which has 
clearly raised the tone of the body. This must be the 
case. It is as impossible to introduce the influence of 
a number of educated, refined, and cultured women 
into any sphere without raising the tone of the atmos- 
phere as it would be to introduce a similar number of 
men of equal standing of culture and intelligence and 
expect that their presence would be unfelt. 



68 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

It is perfectly true that there are eleven fewer 
women in Parliament now than there were in former 
times. This is due entirely to normal causes, similar to 
reasons which lead to the dropping out of men mem- 
bers. It must be borne in mind that numbers of the 
present women members have been re-elected again 
and again as the candidates of men as well as women 
electors. Two only have been defeated when standing 
for re-election, and one of those two candidates was 
beaten by but three votes. Several suffered from ill- 
health, the baroness being at the present time in a hos- 
pital in Sweden. Others have been unable to adjust 
their domestic affairs to make regular attendance pos- 
sible, just as business men frequently decline to stand 
again owing to pressing personal matters. 

I noticed a statement in print the other day to the 
effect that madness is on the increase in Finland, and 
also that women have lost their " sweet reasonable- 
ness " since they got the vote : — the same time-hon- 
ored, moss-grown arguments which are brought out as 
the last struggle of an opponent at bay ! 

Let us look at the matter of increased madness due 
to women having the vote. If anyone undertakes a 
close study of the subject, he will find that in the 
statistics of every country there is recorded an increase 
of the number of patients in asylums. This is seen 
in figures which set forth the numbers of inmates ; 
but if anyone will take the trouble to study the reports 
of public and private institutions he will also find that 
a large number of the inmates of asylums are there 
for some mental difficulty quite apart from madness. 
Experts in mental diseases are in charge of these insti- 
tutions, and to get the benefit of their skill patients 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 69 

are sent there for mental disorders which are not even 
classified as madness. The patients, in short, are there 
merely to secure for them the most efficient service. 

Many of these reports show also an increasing num- 
ber of curable patients. Therefore statistics of the 
numbers of inmates of asylums represent not an actual 
increase in madness, but a highly developed system 
of treating all manner of mental diseases by experts. 

Figures based upon general statistics, if they are 
accurately compiled, may be true, but they in no sense 
represent the full truth of a given situation. Of course 
there are more people in the asylums in Finland now, 
just as there are in many other countries ; but to dump 
a world condition at the door of Finland, and calmly 
declare that " madness has increased since women 
have been given the vote," merely indicates that some 
persons who should take up permanent residence in an 
asylum are still at large. The whole statement is a 
false representation of the situation, and conveys, 
probably unintentionally, anything but the true state 
of affairs. 

I find in Finland but ten per cent, of the people are 
illiterate. It would be a fact if I stated that there is 
but ten per cent, of illiteracy " since women got the 
vote," but it would be decidedly a dishonest argument 
if I used it to illustrate the value of women's vote. 
This shows the necessity of a " final analysis " before 
a statement is used for or against any proposition. 

CASE OF THE POOR. 

One of the poor law officials is stated to have 
exclaimed, with holy unction, " Oh ! if our ladies 
would only give a little more time to the poor and less 



70 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

thought to politics ! " Now the women of Finland 
have introduced twenty-nine bills into Parliament, all 
of which have a direct bearing upon conditions which 
affect the whole community, as well as dealing with 
points specially affecting woman's interests. Most of 
them deal with measures which dump the " case of the 
poor " as charges upon the women of the land. They 
deal with maternity insurance, the support of Govern- 
ment midwives, the appointment of women factory 
inspectors, and the prohibition of the importation, sale, 
manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. 

Of other bills brought in by women, the following 
have been passed : The right of women to assist in 
the department of public medicine; the establishment 
of laws against the ill-treatment of children ; the com- 
plete freeing of a wife from the guardianship of her 
husband ; the raising of the marriage age of girls from 
fifteen to eighteen years, and the organization of col- 
onies for youthful criminals. 

The women are also dealing with a curious situa- 
tion, but one which obtains in other countries where 
women vote. All women who come under the qualifi- 
cations of male electors may vote for councillors, but 
are not allowed a seat upon city councils; they may 
go to Parliament, but to take part in city housekeeping 
is a battle they must yet win. This is also true in 
Australia. 

It has been stated by a writer upon " Things Finn- 
ish " that when the fact of suffrage for women was 
new they made use of the vote to a greater extent than 
they have in more recent elections ; also that the 
women vote in rural districts is much smaller. These 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 71 

are but half-truths when given without the setting. 
It is a fact that there are fewer votes cast by women 
in the rural districts, for the simple reason that women 
are not there to cast them. From these districts of 
Finland, as elsewhere, there is a constant outflow of 
the male population seeking homes in a new land. 
The women are left behind for a longer or shorter 
period, and frequently must become bread-winners. 
In search of occupation, they seek the centers of popu- 
lation and swell the ranks of the voting women of the 
cities, where the woman vote has increased at the ratio 
equal to that by which it has diminished in rural parts. 

A CHAPTER OF HISTORY. 

The truth is that the vote in Finland is not what 
it was. It is a pathetic incident in the struggles of a 
brave people who feel the heel of oppression bearing 
upon them with a crushing weight ; a weight heavy 
enough to paralyze all effort and utterly kill all power 
to act. Perhaps a few lines of history will shed a little 
light upon the relation of the falling off in the vote of 
both country and city electors. 

When Finland was taken from Sweden, and fell 
into the hands of Russia, the Czar was made Grand 
Duke of the country. Alexander I took an oath to 
respect the independence of Finland. A similar obli- 
gation was assumed by the succeeding rulers, includ- 
ing the present Czar. For the last few years the 
Russian Government has been steadily undermining 
the constitution which was restored to them in 1905. 
The possibility of the Finns sustaining and enforcing 
their own laws seems at present very doubtful. A 



72 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

recent incident illustrates how fierce the battle is, and 
how helpless the people are. In one district the High 
Court recently rendered a decision in a case involving 
the support of Finnish law. Because of their verdict, 
the entire court, save the president, was sent to a Rus- 
sian prison for sixteen months. Not only so, but they 
were debarred from holding office for ten years in the 
State or any municipality. One of the judges is sev- 
enty years old. The wives and children of these high 
officials are left entirely unprovided for. 

Such acts of oppression are continually taking place. 
Just men are, one after another, being dragged to 
prison for performing the duties which they have sworn 
to undertake. Is it any wonder, then, that electors, 
men as well as women, become discouraged when they 
see the only possible channel through which laws may 
be enforced brought to general wreckage? They grow 
weary of the farce of sending law-makers up to repre- 
sent them when there is such little prospect of any 
power to put the laws into effect. 

Yes, women do vote in somewhat fewer numbers 
than formerly; so do men. But what wonder, when 
the ballot becomes a farce and laws a burlesque on 
human liberty? Yet, in the face of these odds, the 
present percentage of votes cast by the whole of the 
electors of Finland is somewhat above the average 
cast in countries where they have full male fran- 
chise and normal conditions of freedom. Of the 
men enrolled upon the register in the last four years 
the percentage of voters has ranged from 64.9 to 70.5, 
while during the same period the percentage of 
women's vote has registered 54.8 — 60.5. 



The Woman's Vote in Finland. 73 

Whether mdividual opinion may be in favor of 
women going to Parliament or not, so long as men 
voters help to put them there just so long will women 
members in Finland remain a factor in future legis- 
lation with increasing results in helping to work out 
" the greatest good to the largest number." 



74 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

CHAPTER IX. 
Women Citizens at Work in Norway. 

'T^HERE had been much active work done by the 
"'• women of Norway, while they still had the same 
sovereign as Sweden, to get the vote, and when at last 
the franchise did come, it was the natural outgrowth of 
a national situation. The interest which the Norwe- 
gian women themselves took in the question had much 
to do with the result. When the separation of the 
kingdoms was effected the fact was recognized, and 
limited suffrage was granted to the women in 1907. 

As all parties are now pledged to support a measure 
granting full adult suffrage to women, it is certain to 
become law next year.* The present restriction is a 
property tax clause. All women over twenty-five who 
pay a given tax rate, or who are married to men who 
pay the said amount, have the right to vote; whereas 
all men over twenty-five, subject to restrictions only 
in regard to a residential qualification, are full citizens. 

Norwegian women have worked just as energet- 
ically in the interests of the general good of all sec- 
tions of the community since they were given the vote 
as they did to secure the franchise. 

The National Council of Women is an organization 
representing all women's societies in the kingdom. 
Each body is represented in the council by a given 
number of delegates. These meet and act for the 
respective bodies they represent. All matters of 

* Since going to press, the measure has passed and the women of 
Norway have been given the full franchise. 



Women Citizens at Work in Norway/. 75 

general interest are subjects of discussion, and any 
special movement becomes part of their platform. 

DOMESTIC SCIENCE. 

Some time ago they represented to the Government 
the need of a training school of domestic science, in 
which teachers going to schools in rural districts could 
qualify along special lines to meet country require- 
ments. The request represented hundreds of women 
voters, and was granted. A fine site was selected, the 
buildings erected, a stafif appointed, and the whole 
place was opened long before the women dared to hope 
that the promise would become performance. There 
it stands, on a beautiful hill, a few miles from the 
capital, with sufficiently extensive grounds to meet all 
requirements. Girls who qualify for country teaching 
conclude their preparation by a course in domestic 
science suited to the rural districts. 

The place accommodates somewhat fewer than 
twenty students. Instruction includes bee-keeping, the 
care of cattle, milking, butter- and cheese-making, also, 
poultry-breeding, and the making of jams, preserves, 
pickles, as well as ordinary economical cooking. It 
was quite a revelation to me to see such a necessary 
and really wonderful institution in full operation, and 
remember that it had never occurred to the men that 
it was so important a part of rural instruction. Cook- 
ing, as taught in State schools, is under the Board of 
Education, but this training college is under the 
Department of Agriculture. The only man employed 
upon the staff is the one who deals with the care of 
cattle and gives instruction in butter- and cheese-mak- 
ing; otherwise it is carried on by women. 



76 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

PROTECTING FACTORY GIRLS. 

The appointment of a woman factory inspector is 
also a recent thing, and the results show how impos- 
sible it is for men to deal with many phases of girl and 
woman life in the industrial world. One of the first 
things the woman inspector did was to carry her 
inspecting genius beyond the walls where the girls 
were working to an investigation of the other condi- 
tions of their life. This she described to me as per- 
fectly shocking; and an immediate move was made to 
protect girls from street life and temptation out of 
working hours. 

Women formed themselves into a large deputation 
and waited upon the city council to discuss the matter 
of a hostel for factory girls. There are eighty-four 
members upon the council, nine of whom are women. 
The women asked for a plot of ground on which to 
build an hostel. This they asked the council to give 
outright, which was done. The woman factory inspec- 
tor had worked out the full cost (every expense in 
detail), brought with her a plan of the proposed build- 
ing, and showed that it could be made a profitable busi- 
ness investment, as well as a home for hundreds of 
girls far away from relatives. It was their purpose 
to float a women's company and build the house, but 
when the council saw the details of the proposition it 
invested to the extent of two-thirds of the cost of the 
hostel. 

CARE OF EMIGRANTS. 

The women learned that large steamers were sailing 
weekly out of Norwegian ports taking hundreds of 
young people to a new world to make their homes far 



Women Citizens at Work in Norway. 77 

from kith and kin. Many of the girls who left were 
quite alone, and on thevoyagemustof necessity mingle 
with all sorts and conditions of men. The situation 
naturally suggested the need of a matron on board 
ship, but one was not forthcoming until the women 
citizens wrote to the shipping company and pointed 
out the desirability of such a person. This should 
have been clear to every man who had a daughter. The 
reply was a striking evidence of how important it is 
to place womankind generally in a position to com- 
mand respect and consideration in all reasonable repre- 
sentations. The company not only indicated a willing- 
ness to meet their request, but they asked the secretary 
if the ladies could recommend anyone for the position, 
and what to their minds would be reasonable compen- 
sation for such services. Enough said ! 

Norwegian women have also been looking into the 
matter of the percentage of " unfit " among children 
at birth, and finding that there were no restrictions on 
marriage short of lunacy, they began an agitation for 
a bill to prevent the marriage of any unfit person by 
requiring that both men and women submit to a thor- 
ough medical examination before marriage, and that 
for certain physical weakness or disease men and 
women alike shall be disqualified for marriage. 

These examples show that when women are in a 
position to make use of their power as citizens there 
need be no fear that it will be misused, or that their 
energies will be directed to array women against men. 



78 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

CHAPTER X. 

How THE Women of China Became Citizens. 

THE enfranchisement of the women of China came 
as a shock to the world. Dr. Sun Yat Sen, said 
in his remarkable speech in Chicago, " When a fire- 
colored flag flies over a Chinese Republic, it will 
float over a nation of women citizens," no one took 
him seriously, although his statement met with storms 
of applause. The doctor knew what he was saying. 
He knew the situation in the whole of China better 
than any living man. He knew the forces which had 
been at work, threading their way through the social 
fabric and preparing the men as well as the women for 
the new era upon which the Empire was so soon to 
embark. 

The general opinion was that the women were 
thrust, wholly unprepared, into a new environment in 
which they would be too dazed or too ignorant to act ; 
this, however, is quite a mistake. A silent preparation 
for such an event has been going on for more than a 
hundred years : — a process which not only qualified 
women for so great a change, but one which was also 
preparing men to accept it. 

The Chinese have almost a reverence for scholar- 
ship. This may be understood by the manner in which 
preference is given to scholars in all official appoint- 
jnents. No matter how closely related to the nobility 
a man may be, if those of humble birth outrank him in 
scholarship, to the latter all preference is given with- 
out a moment's hesitation. 



How the Women of China Became Citizens. 79 

When the missionaries entered China they pursued 
the course usual in other lands and opened schools for 
girls. It was a wonderful innovation. Up to that time 
it was generally supposed that girls not only had no 
brains, but, worse still, they had no use for them. It 
was a fixed belief in the mind of the average man that 
women and girls had little capacity to receive instruc- 
tion. Every possible chance was given to the boys, and 
most extensive arrangements were made to give them 
an opportunity to prove their efficiency in letters. 

I chanced to be in Canton when some 4,000 students 
had gathered from districts far and wide to take the 
examinations which constitute the supreme test for 
Government service. At that time large numbers of 
the leading educationalists of China were present. Of 
several to whom I talked, not a few gave it as their 
opinion that women really had " receptive minds." 
One distinguished professor entertained a firm convic- 
tion that a nation could never rise until the women 
were educated. 

When the confidence in missionaries was more or 
less established, girls were allowed to attend their 
schools. The idea of its being a good thing to educate 
a girl gradually dawned upon the public mind. The 
light was long coming. Year by year the results of 
the training in the missionary schools, more and more 
demonstrated the ability of the girl mind to receive 
instruction. The better class of Chinese began to 
realize that there were real advantages in allowing a 
girl to acquire knowledge. They also saw that the 
girls could pursue the same course and system of study 
followed by the boys with about the same average 
results. 



80 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

I would like to say here that whatever individual 
opinion may be concerning the value of missionary 
teaching in the Far East, it must be recognized that 
through their girls' schools they laid the foundation 
of all progress for womankind throughout the Empire. 
Not so much, perhaps, in the actual extent of their 
education, as in establishing and fully demonstrating 
the fact that girls, Chinese girls, actually could be 
taught; — that the quality of their mentality was quite 
equal to that of the gray matter deposited in the mas- 
culine cranium. What a revelation it must have been ! 

It is now somewhat more than a hundred years that 
the average male has been slowly absorbing that fact. 
By degrees educated girls have passed through the 
mission school to the open field for women teachers 
in the school room as well as in the houses of the 
common people, instructing in hygiene in the home, 
domestic science, silk-worm culture and agricultural 
pursuits. 

In visiting some of these schools for girls situated 
inland, far from the coast, what impressed me most, 
as I came in close touch with them, was how much 
less curious they were about what western girls did 
than anxious to try and understand what they 
could do. 

Thinking men finally saw the advantage of a more 
extended system of education. In various provinces 
advancement has been marked and rapid, one district 
undertaking the stupendous task of erecting five 
thousand school houses in a year. 

The crowning achievement upon educational lines 
was reached when the Minister of Education of the 
Chinese Republic made an official announcement that 



How the Women of China Became Citizens. 81 

the future policy of the department would be to let 
down all bars which had, in the past, obstructed the 
progress of women and give them an equal chance 
with men in school advantages. A decree to that 
effect has been issued, and details of methods by which 
it will be carried out in the whole Empire are now 
under consideration. 

What this means to the women of China we of the 
West little understand. Through education woman 
will come into her own in the home, for she will com- 
mand a respect which usage has never granted and 
establish a status heretofore unknown. 

While the hundred years of missionary work has 
worked a change in the ideas and ideals of all girls who 
have passed through their hand — and I mean this quite 
aside from the teaching of any religious faith — ^there 
have been influences at work among those who have 
never been brought in contact with educational forces. 

The wisdom of Dr. Sen may be seen in his masterly 
stroke of establishing a press throughout China. The 
greatest task to which human hand was ever placed 
was that of organizing the only possible means of a 
rapid education of 400,000,000 of people. What his 
genius did to bring the world of progress to the teem- 
ing millions of China by placing the newspaper at their 
very doors no human mind can calculate. This is no 
form of speech — positively no mind can grasp it. 

As a medium by which knowledge could spread and 
public sentiment become awakened, some of the clever 
women undertook the newspaper and magazine busi- 
ness, not merely writing, but conducting, the entire 
enterprise; that the Chinese women might inform 
themselves concerning other women in other lands. 



82 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

Scores of such publications seemed to spring up as 
the natural product of a changed atmosphere, and 
many of them have a large circulation among women 
subscribers. 

In Pekin, a woman's journal, edited by Madame 
Chang, the gifted and educated widow of a high gov- 
ernment official, is published weekly, and gives de- 
tailed accounts of the progress women are making in 
all parts of the world. 

There is still another influence, which to my mind 
has been the source of a general arrest of thought 
among the mothers of China. For ages, nobody can 
estimate the length of time, the better class women 
were victims of the criminal practice of foot-binding, 
because men desired, and therefore decreed it. As 
though it were not enough to be deprived of the advan- 
tages of mind development or soul growth, reared in 
a profound belief of their inferiority to the male sex, 
existing merely as an evil necessary to perpetuate the 
race, but with all this, they must be so crippled as to 
render them almost helpless. Every well-to-do mother 
was expected to take her little daughter when two 
years of age and submit her to the torture and cruelty 
of binding her feet. No matter how much the good 
sense of the mother might rebel against it, the task was 
forced upon her. This custom was practiced by the 
Chinese and scorned by the Manchus. In order to 
impress the populace that she was in favor of reforms, 
the old Empress issued a ukas forbidding foot-binding. 
This, of course, brought an arrest of thought to mil- 
lions of mothers who had accepted the usage as some- 
thing that " always had been and always would be."' 
A reform atmosphere was created. Women naturally 



How the Women of China Became Citizens. 83 

began to wonder what it meant. In fact, they began to 
think. It was the forerunner of physical freedom for 
the young generation. The shock was so great to the 
mass that almost the entire Empire " stopped to think 
about it." 

While the act on the part of the Empress was prob- 
ably prompted as a matter of diplomacy, with little 
thought of the decree being carried into effect, there 
can be no doubt that it was the very foundation of 
advanced thought among women. The generation 
already in a state of womanhood, for the first time in 
their lives had been suddenly brought face to face 
with a situation which compelled them to think. 

I well recall having engaged a Chinese woman to 
travel inland with me when I was about to take a long 
trip. She was forty-two years of age, full-grown, of 
course, and her feet were but four and a half inches 
long. I entreated her to remove the bandages and 
enjoy the comfort of untrammeled progress. The poor 
soul told me that her feet had been bound for forty 
years, the bandages never having been removed except 
to replace them with clean ones. To dispense with the 
bandages would incapacitate her completely. No won- 
der women were confused and bewildered. The seeds 
of reform took rootage. 

Naturally, every one is speculating as to whether or 
not the Chinese women will " make good " in citizen- 
ship. It must be pointed out that the women, although 
so cruelly oppressed for ages, have never been cowed, 
suppressed or broken in spirit. They are as brave as 
any women I have ever lived among, and recent events 
prove this statement to be correct. This virtue has 
merely been held in check until an outlet presented 



84 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

itself. The outlet has arrived, and the women are 
manifesting their natural courage in a variety of ways, 
each an expression of individual temperament. 

As an illustration, take the young ladies of the 
school for girls at Chang- Yu. The secretary of these 
patriotic and enthusiastic maidens wrote to the leaders 
of the republic when the revolution was in force, offer- 
ing their services in defense of their country against 
the Manchus. The appeal concluded by saying : *' We 
wish to have a share with the men of China in crush- 
ing out our enemy. Send us arms." 

In the south, where the revolution spirit was madly 
rampant, and whole communities seethed with vio- 
lence, the girls, three hundred strong, organized them- 
selves into the " Amazon Girls' Corps." Arming them- 
selves with swords, they joined the regular troops. 
They were denied recognition by the chief commander, 
who declined to admit them to field service or provide 
them with equipment. Although they adopted men's 
shoes of foreign make to conceal their crippled feet, 
they were too slow of movement to be of service in 
action. 

When the Manchu power fell, and the event was to 
be fittingly celebrated in all parts of China, almost 
every city organized a demonstration of one sort or 
another. In a number of places women arranged their 
own processions, and with banners, bands and torches 
gave a public exhibition of their approval of the new 
order of things. 

Militant methods were adopted in but one part of 
the Empire. Emboldened by accounts of the riotous 
acts of English women, a goodly number marched to 



How the Women of China Became Citizens. 85 

the Assembly in a body. Entering the chamber, they 
overturned furniture, vehemently denounced their 
state of oppression, and demanded full suffrage then 
and there. A few of the more aggressive exponents 
of the cause proceeded literally to kick their ideas into 
the almost distracted members, who, having viewed the 
proceedings in awed silence, made good their escape. 
The Assembly moved to the north ! 

Concerning future events, the women are certain to 
score at one point at least. In China, as also in Eng- 
land and America, men are decreasing in stature, while 
women are developing physically at a corresponding 
degree. 

Take a given number of Chinese men and women 
from the same social stratum, be that what it may, 
there is no possible doubt but the women could endure 
the greater degree of physical or nerve strain. This is 
true of all classes, and is the result of the undermining 
for generations of the constitutions of men by the long- 
continued use of opium. High and low, rich and poor, 
alike indulge in the abundant use of the drug. 

During recent investigations into the use of opium it 
has been estimated that there are about 100,000,000 
smokers, 2,000,000 of whom die every year. That 
means that more than a quarter of the male population 
are always upon the highwa}'^ to sure and certain 
wreckage of both mind and body. I have seen as many 
as 1,700 smoking under one roof. It is true that the use 
has greatly diminished the last few years, through the 
efforts of the Chinese Government in crushing out the 
cultivation of the native plant, but with the inflow of 
the drug from the British Empire and the continued 



86 What Women Have Done with the Vote. 

use of it by those confirmed in the habit, it will be at 
least two generations before the physical manhood of 
the country will be restored to normal. 

Meantime, as in Western lands, girls will continue 
to develop under universal training in the public school 
until' they, too, will possess greater vitality of both 
mind and body than their men. The race of the 
women of China to overtake the men will be an easy 
one, because so large a percentage of the male popula- 
tion falls below par because of the use of opium, a vice, 
strange to say, to which women have never become 
addicted. 

Viewing the situation from all sides, the calm, 
steady progress of the women in their new environ- 
ment seems pretty well assured. Coming, as it does, 
with a complete revolution in every relation of life, 
they will quickly adjust themselves to the responsi- 
bility of citizenship as a part of the changed environ- 
ment in which they now find themselves. 



EVERY AMERICAN WOMAN 

Should Have Some Remunerative Occupation Establishing 
Her Independence and Freedom. 



A Vital Occupation for Women 



The reader of this 
page can undoubtedly 
recall the many bitter 
experiences of friends 
and acquaintances, be- 
cause they had todepend 
on their parents or other 
relatives for support,— 
a support sometimes 
grudgingly given. The 
question arises : "How 
can I, with reasonable 
quickness and certainty, 
attain the independence 
I desire? " 

The Fletcher 
Music Method opens 
to Women a road to 
independence and free- 
dom, mentally and fi- 
nancially. 



Dr. Lyman Abbott says of this Method: "She teaches children to think and 
express themselves in terms of music. She converts it from a blind, mechanical 
copying into vital self expression. * * * It seems to me more than a method — it is a 
revolution and converts musical education from a mere drill and drudgery into an 
inspiration and a life." 

Musical Women with a love for children can study this Method and will 
find it offers a happy, refined, protected and remunerative profession. 

Over 600 women have already taken up this work, but the field is almost 
exhaustless and the demand for Teachers growing more rapidly than I can meet it. 

The time needed to acquire this Method is from eight to ten weeks, consisting of 
over 200 hours of lectures given by the originator of the Method. 

No Instruction is given by Correspondence. 

Classes are held in Brookline (Boston), Mass., on October ]st, January 15th and 
July 1st of each year. 

Apply for full particulars to 

EVELYN FLETCHER COPP, 31 York Terrace, Brookline, Mass. 




Mrs. Copp lectures before Teachers' Associations, Women's Clubs, and other 
organizations. Applications for lectures should be sent to 

WILLIAM B. FEAKINS, 19 West 44th Street 

NEW YORK CITY 



OCT 6 1913 



The Only Woman Senator in America 

HELEN RING ROBINSON 

TELLS 

"What Women Have Done 
With the Vote'' 

IN COLORADO 

A New Englander by birth, has lived for so many- 
years in Colorado, that she presents a splendid com- 
bination of the time-honored Eastern culture and 
Western vitality. — New York Evening Sun. 

A delightfully humorous yet most instructive 
speech. — Pittsburgh Press. 




Senator Robinson 



For Terms and Dates apply 

WILLIAM B. FEAKINS 

19 West 44th Street NEW YORK 



THE TRUTH ABOUT FOODS 

Is The Most Important Thing for Modern 
Women to Know 

The health of the family, the growth of the child, the welfare of the 
workers, all depend upon the home-maker's knowledge of foods. 

"THE FORECAST," a magazine of Pure Food and Home Efficiency, 
supplies this knowledge. 

It tells its readers what is bad food and how to avoid it as well as what 
is good food and how to get it. 

A year's subscription costs but One Dollar. 

THE FORECAST MAGAZINE ' 



Flanders Building, Philadelphia 



C. Houston Goudiss, Publisher 



Mr. Goudiss is open for lecture engagements upon food, sanitation and diet. 
His subjects cover a wide field and are of popular interest. 

For Terms and Dates apply to William B. Feakins, 19 West 44th Street, New York 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



009 541 563 5 O 



